The Use of Molecular Methods in Infectious Diseases

Abstract

IN recent years a large number of articles have appeared in clinical journals describing contemporary molecular methods and their applications in clinical medicine. This review addresses four applications of molecular techniques in infectious diseases: they can be used to demonstrate relatedness between strains for epidemiologic investigations, to shed light on the pathogenesis or virulence of a strain, to facilitate the clinical diagnosis, and to identify the agents of syndromes whose causes are unknown.Molecular EpidemiologyTo find the cause of an infectious-disease outbreak, epidemiologists need to determine early on whether a single strain (or type) of microorganism is responsible for . . .