Polymorphism Analysis of the Campylobacter jejuni

small DNA fragments. To determine whether the system could replace conventional restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing by agarose gel electrophoresis, we compared the analyzer with conventional flagellin RFLP for typing Campylobacter jejuni. Ninety-seven isolates representing 46 Fla types were initially analyzed. Correct Fla types were detected in 59 % of the isolates. The major problem with the system was in resolving samples containing multiple DNA fragments differing from 8 to 20 bp. Overall, the bioanalyzer has the potential to replace conventional RFLP analysis by gel electrophoresis, but improvements in the chip separation are needed. The Agilent 2100 bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, Calif.) (referred to here as the bioanalyzer) is the first commercially available system to utilize chip-based nucleic acid separation technology. The LabChip (developed by Cali-per Technologies, Mountain View, Calif.) separates nucleic acid fragments by capillary electrophoresis in a chip with mi-crofabricated channels and automates the detection as well as on-line data evaluation. We previously developed a typing sys-tem for Campylobacter jejuni based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the Campylobacter flaA flagellin gene (3, 4). While the system works well and has been utilized for several epidemiologic investigations (7