Genotypic characterization of Vibrio cholerae isolates using several DNA fingerprint techniques.

Serious pandemics of cholera have occurred throughout the known history of mankind, especially in India, which is a motherland for cholera disease. For the last 20 years several DNA-based typing methods have been employed to study the clonal relatedness between Vibrio cholerae isolates irrespective of their geographical locations. Traditional typing methods, such as biochemical tests, phage typing, serotyping, biotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility tests, have produced reliable and informative data regarding V cholerae for a long time. Gradually molecular typing techniques have taken the place of traditional typing methods because they produce the same results upon repeat testing of V cholerae strain. In this article we focus on the discriminatory power of different DNA fingerprint techniques that are generally used to know the homogeneity and heterogeneity among different V cholerae isolates.