Molecular epidemiologic studies provide evidence of transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis within clusters of patients whose isolates share identical IS6110-DNA fingerprint patterns. However, M. tuberculosis transmission among patients whose isolates have similar but not identical DNA fingerprint patterns (i.e., differing by a single band) has not been well documented. We used DNA fingerpri...

Genetic diversity is a study undertaken to classify an individual or population compared to other individuals or populations. This is a relative measure, as the distance between any pair of entries in the study is greater or lesser depending on all pairwise comparisons that can be made in the study. However, genetic fingerprinting is the unambiguous identification of an individual (based on the...

Fifteen serotypes of E. coli isolated from poultry were subjected to RAPD-PCR using eight oligonucleotide random primers. Amplification with each of the primers resulted in generation of different DNA fingerprinting profile with varied number of bands. Dendrogram based generation of clustering of E. coli serotypes showed two major clusters. The polymorphic amplicons served as markers for E. col...

The use of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) as molecular marker to identify microbial populations is now routinely used in microbial ecology. One of the strategies herein is cloning of PCR products obtained from environmental DNA to explore the diversity of microbial communities without the need of cultivation. Although successful, this approach is for practical reasons not suited to study the complex dyna...