Bacterial Identification Based on Universal Gene Amplification and Sequencing

Abstract

<p> <span>Accurate identification of bacterial isolates is one of the fundamental tasks in clinical microbiology laboratories. As a result of the widespread use of PCR and DNA sequencing in the last two decades, amplification and sequencing of universal gene targets represent an advanced technology that can yield reproducible and unambiguous identification even for rare or slow-growing bacteria within 1 or 2 days. Among the various studied gene targets, 16S rDNA gene has been the most widely used, having played a pivotal role in identification of bacteria in clinical microbiology and reference laboratories. Apart from bacterial identification, the use of 16S rDNA gene sequencing has also led to the discovery of a large diversity of previously undescribed, novel bacterial species. Although 16S rDNA gene sequencing can achieve high discriminative power in identifying many groups of bacteria to species level, there are “blind spots” within some major genera. In these circumstances, alternative targets (e.g., </span><em>groEL</em><span>, </span><em>rpoB</em><span>, </span><em>dnaJ</em><span>), usually based on highly conserved proteins, are used.</span> <br></p>