[Molecular biological methods for epidemiological typing of Salmonella--a review]

Various molecular typing methods for the analysis of zoonotic bacterial pathogens have been developed during the last decade. Because of their high discriminatory power, these methods have been increasingly used even in routine diagnostics. The description of several independent genotypic characteristics in addition to that of the phenotypic properties enables a complex and exact identification of bacterial strains. Molecular techniques such as plasmid analysis, ribotyping. IS200 typing as well as macrorestriction analysis represent components of a basic molecular typing system for Salmonella isolates which proved to be suitable for various epidemiological applications.