Multilocus sequence typing: molecular typing of bacterial pathogens in an era of rapid DNA sequencing and the Internet

Multilocus sequence typing is a development of multilocus enzyme electropho resis in which the alleles at multiple housekeeping loci are assigned direc tly by nucleotide sequencing, rather than indirectly from the electrophoret ic mobilities of their gene products. A major advantage of this approach is that sequence data are unambiguous and electronically portable, allowing m olecular typing of bacterial pathogens (or other infectious agents) via the Internet.