Molecular diagnosis of infection and resistance

The identification of bacteria in sputum has traditionally relied on wet culture of bacteria and other micro organisms on agar plates. This approach is geared to identify specific pathogens and it has become clear that this approach only identifies a narrow group of pathogenic bacteria. Next generation sequencing (NGS) and other molecular methods, particularly 16srDNA, have identified a much wider range of bacteria though many of these are in low abundance and may not be important clinically. In addition, it is apparent from culture based methodologies that the assessment of microbial resistance using culture ba…