Developments in the diagnosis of meningococcal disease and the characterization of Neisseria meningitidis

Meningococcal disease (MD) remains an important cause of morbidity and mort ality around the world. The need for improved therapies and vaccines is the refore paramount. To achieve this, the bacterium needs to be better charact erized and this can be done by molecular methods. Although phenotypic metho ds have provided important information on the meningococcus and led to the development of new vaccines, the design of future therapies relies on furth er molecular analyses. This review describes the use of a number of new tec hniques based on genotypic/sequence typing such as the polymerase chain rea ction (PCR) and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST). These methods will lead to the non-culture characterization of meningococci and thereby provide in formation to complement that from culture-based methods. DNA sequencing and microarrays will also lead to whole genome approaches to typing which will provide further insights into our understanding of this pathogen. (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.