Abstract: Salmonellae are well-known food-borne bacterial pathogens that are causative agents of major diseases including intestinal fevers like typhoid and parathyroid fevers, food poisoning, septicemia in humans; and diarrhea and septicemia in cattle. Hence, detection of these bacteria followed by assigning their genetic relationship among isolates is valuable for epidemiological surveillance and control of their infections. The present study was conducted to compare discriminatory power of three different primers (23L, P1254, and OPL12) for molecular typing of 22 Salmonella Typhimurium isolates (from bovine fecal samples) using random amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR (RAPD-PCR) method. The results showed that 4, 8, and 13 electrophoretic patterns were respectively obtained from PCR products related to 23L, P1254, and OPL12 primers in RAPD-PCR assays. The discrimination indices (DI) for 3 RAPD-PCR primers 23L, P1254, and OPL12 were 0.925, 0.936, and 0.955, respectively. Consequently, these findings recommend to use the primer OPL12 for RAPD-PCR analysis of S. Typhimurium isolates. Although this primer has previously been applied for molecular analysis in plant studies, to our knowledge, this is the first utilization of this primer for determination of genetic diversity among Salmonella isolates.
