Limitations
MLST appears best in population genetic study but it is expensive. Due to the sequence conservation in housekeeping genes, MLST sometimes lacks the discriminatory power to differentiate bacterial strains, which limits its use in epidemiological investigations. To improve the discriminatory power of MLST, a multi-virulence-locus sequence typing (MVLST) approach has been developed using Listeria monocytogenes. MVLST broadens the benefits of MLST but targets virulence genes, which may be more polymorphic than housekeeping genes. Population genetics is not the only relevant factor in an epidemic. Virulence factors are also important in causing disease, and population genetic studies struggle to monitor these. This is because the genes involved are often highly recombining and mobile between strains in comparison with the population genetic framework. Thus, for example in Escherichia coli, identifying strains carrying toxin genes is more important than having a population genetics-based evaluation of prevalent strains.
Read more about this topic: Multilocus Sequence Typing
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