Abstract:This work is to investigate the effect of different GC clamps and different positions of primers connected with GC clamps on the DGGE fingerprint of food borne pathogens. We synthesized 6 pairs of primers encoding RNA polymerase β subunit(rpoB 1-6)containing 3 different GC clamps(GC-1,GC-2 and GC-3)that linked to 5'endings of both forward and reverse primers,respectively. Then,rpoB-PCR-DGGE was used to analyze Vibrio parahaemolyticus(5 strains),Listeria monocytogenes(5 strains),and Salmonella spp.(3 strains). The results of fingerprint analysis were compared with that of V3-PCR-DGGE and ERIC-PCR. GC-3 clamp linked with reverse primer presented the best discriminating effect,and the discriminating index of rpoB-PCR-DGGE reached 0.9 that was equal to ERIC-PCR and greater than V3-PCR-DGGE. In conclusion,both of the different GC clamp sequences and linked positions of primers with GC clamp affected the result of rpoB-PCR-DGGE fingerprint. Choosing or designing GC clamp without continuous guanine(G base)and linked with 5'ending of reverse primer will improve the detecting and typing effect of rpoB-PCR-DGGE for food borne pathogens.