scope:

Bacterial strain typing is now performed in a wide range of venues, including hospital-based clinical microbiology laboratories; federal, state, and local reference laboratories; as well as industrial and commercial laboratories. Similarly, the results of bacterial strain typing are now used in many different contexts, including clinical care settings; public health investigations, particularly of emerging infections; the food and pharmaceutical industries; and environmental analyses.

The goal of this guideline is to provide a framework that will facilitate consistency in reporting bacterial strain typing and will assist both the laboratories performing these studies and the professionals applying the results. A general approach to the analysis of molecular typing data will be presented, as well as specific criteria for interpreting typing results obtained with the most commonly used methods. This guideline will focus on techniques that analyze bacterial chromosomal DNA, particularly pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and nucleotide sequencing; phenotypic techniques (e.g., serotyping, phage typing) and plasmid-based methods will not be addressed.