Concise Guide to Mycobacteria and Their Molecular Differentiation

This book encompasses two parts. The first has an entry for each named mycobacterial species, which gives a short overview of the phenotypic characteristics. Under the section Udifferential diagnosis," specific hints are given to make genotypic or phenotypic distinction to closely related species. A table that summarises the main physiological features and a list of "synonyms" completes this part. The second section features our results regarding the molecular differentiation of Mycobacterium species. Special emphasis is put on 16S ribosomal DNA and on internal transcribed spacer region sequence analysis. Only in cases where the sequence diversity does not suffice to make a distinction between different species, other suitable molecular targets are taken into account. Signature sequence analysis summaries, similarity search analysis of non-valid named GenBank sequence entries let every reader exploit the results to their own needs. An extensive bibliography finishes the book.