Molecular Approaches to Identification of Bacterial Species
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The need to identify microorganisms rapidly has led to the development of a number of molecular identification and characterization tools. These have not yet become routinely adopted in the analytical or diagnostic laboratory but probably will be in the future.
MOLECULAR APPROACHES TO IDENTIFICATION
The need to identify
microorganisms rapidly has led to the development of a number of molecular
identification and characterization tools. These have not yet become routinely
adopted in the analytical or diagnostic laboratory but probably will be in the
future. One such technique (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis; DGGE)
isolates and amplifies 16S ribosomal DNA and, following sequencing of the
bases, compares this with known sequences held in a reference library. This
approach enables phylogenetic relationships to be derived even for those
bacteria that have not previously been identified. Other systems examine the
patterns of key constituents of the cells such as fatty acids and assign
identities based on similarity matches to known reference cultures.
Molecular approaches can
be of especially useful when attempting to detect a particular species. Thus,
gene probes carrying fluorescent dyes can be used in hybridization procedures
with the collected clinical material. Examination under the fluorescent
microscope will show the targeted organism as fluorescent against a background
of non-fluorescent organisms.
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