Spacer-Based Macroarrays for CRISPR Genotyping

Abstract

Macroarray-based analysis is a powerful and economic format to study variations in "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)" loci in bacteria. To date, it was used almost exclusively for Mycobacterium tuberculosis and was named spoligotyping (spacer oligonucleotides typing). Here, we describe the pipeline of this approach that includes search of loci and selection of spacers, preparation of the membrane with immobilized probes and spoligotyping itself (PCR and reverse hybridization).