Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP) Profiling of Bacterial 16S rRNA Genes

T-RFLP profiling is a very effective method for comparing many samples in an environmental microbiology study, because fingerprints of microbial diversity can be generated in a sensitive, reproducible, and cost-effective manner. This protocol describes the steps required to generate T-RFLP profiles of the dominant members of a bacterial community, by PCR amplification of the bacterial 16S rRNA genes and three restriction endonuclease digests to generate three different profiles for each sample. The generation of multiple profiles per sample provides enough information to confidently differentiate rich environmental bacterial communities.
Source: Springer protocols feed by Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: news