Designing Universal Primer for the Identification of Erythromycin and Tetracycline Resistance Genes in Oral Streptococci

Oral streptococci being the early colonizers of oral biofilm have a high impact on the health status of an individual. The resistance of streptococci to erythromycin and tetracycline possess a global threat in oral health by harboring the erm and tet resistant genes which are proved to be correlated with each other. Considering the high prevalence of erm and tet resistance in oral streptococci, identification of universal primers for these genes are necessary to characterize these genes. Our work has put forth a heuristic approach in designing universal primers to detect genetically diverse erm and tet resistant genes in streptococci. The erm and tet primers were validated to be universal among the streptococci group. The universal primers designed for erm and tet gene retrieved 100% and 72.7% of sequence similarity of streptococcus deposited in NCBI gene repository. Identification of universal primers for the successful amplification of erm and tet genes of streptococci for the first time will minimize the usage of multiple primers to isolate resistant streptococci for rapid detection of antibiotic-resistant genes.