Fingerprinting microbial genomes using the RAPD or AP-PCR method

The random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) or arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AP-PCR) DNA fingerprinting technique provides one of the most sensitive and efficient of current methods for distinguishing different strains of a species. It uses single oligonucleotides of arbitrarily chosen sequence with no known homology to the target genome as primers and yields arrays of DNA fragments that are strain-specific and generally reproducible. Some of the conditions that have been found to be optimal for RAPD tests of representative microbes are described along with possible interpretations of test results.