Identification of bacteria species by DNA sequencing

Applications

Identification of isolated bacterial contaminants can give breweries important information about the nature and origins of bacteria found in their yeast and in their products. Traditional methods to identify bacteria can be time consuming and often lack sensitivity, particularly when trying to differentiate closely related species of brewing microbes. DNA sequencing allows the rapid and precise identification of bacteria to the species level, based on differences within ribosomal DNA sequences.

Technology

This method involves the amplification of rDNA by PCR followed by sequencing of the resulting rDNA fragment. Identification to the species level is performed by comparison to a Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) database comprising >1 million entries for bacteria.