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Review
. 2019 May 13;7(5):130.
doi: 10.3390/microorganisms7050130.

Advances in Chemical and Biological Methods to Identify Microorganisms-From Past to Present

Affiliations
Review

Advances in Chemical and Biological Methods to Identify Microorganisms-From Past to Present

Ricardo Franco-Duarte et al. Microorganisms. .

Abstract

Fast detection and identification of microorganisms is a challenging and significant feature from industry to medicine. Standard approaches are known to be very time-consuming and labor-intensive (e.g., culture media and biochemical tests). Conversely, screening techniques demand a quick and low-cost grouping of bacterial/fungal isolates and current analysis call for broad reports of microorganisms, involving the application of molecular techniques (e.g., 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing based on polymerase chain reaction). The goal of this review is to present the past and the present methods of detection and identification of microorganisms, and to discuss their advantages and their limitations.

Keywords: DNA fingerprinting; MALDI-TOF; PCR; RAPD PCR; WGS; chromogenic media; identification methods; microscopy techniques; real-time PCR.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Methods for microorganism identification: chromogenic media and microscopy, biochemical and molecular techniques.

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