Multilocus sequence typing: molecular typing of bacterial pathogens in an era of rapid DNA sequencing and the internet.

Multilocus sequence typing is a development of multilocus enzyme electrophoresis in which the alleles at multiple house-keeping loci are assigned directly by nucleotide sequencing, rather than indirectly from the electrophoretic mobilities of their gene products. A major advantage of this approach is that sequence data are unambiguous and electronically portable, allowing molecular typing of bacterial pathogens (or other infectious agents) via the Internet.