Microchip Capillary electrophoresis of multi-locus VNTR analysis for genotyping of Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis in microbial forensic cases.

Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis are etiological agents of anthrax and plague respectively, and are also considered among the most feared potential bioterrorism agents. These microorganisms show intraspecies genome homogeneity, making strains differentiation difficult, while strains identification and comparison with known genotypes may be crucial for naturally occurring outbreaks vs. bioterrorist events discrimination.Here an MLVA application for B. anthracis and Y. pestis strains differentiation is described on Microchip Capillary electrophoresis apparatus. The platform is a candidate for on-site MLVA genotyping of biothreat agents as well as other bacterial pathogens. This microfluidics-based electrophoresis analysis system represents an alternative to the more expensive and demanding capillary electrophoresis methods, and to the less expensive but more time-consuming standard agarose gel approach.