Traditional microbiology techniques rely primarily on
agar culturing as a means to enumerate and identify bacteria, especially
when analyzing complex, mixed species cultures. In addition to being
time consuming (12-72 hours), many bacteria, such as fastidious and
anaerobic bacteria require specific growth conditions and it is
estimated that in some samples (e.g. environmental samples) less than
10% of bacteria are successfully cultured. Due to the constraints of
traditional techniques, Microbiologists have recently turned to genetic
analysis techniques to help profile and identify the bacterial and
fungal diversity in a variety of different clinical and environmental
samples. In addition molecular techniques have been used to characterize
antibiotic resistance via Mutation Detection analysis.
The WAVE® System offers full automation, high throughput and yield
high reproducibility and can be used to solve these microbiological questions. The WAVE System enables separation of PCR products of similar or identical size but of different sequence using Temperature Modulated Fragment Analysis (TMFA). To date the most widely used mode of TMFA is DHPLC.
The WAVE System with its
Navigator™ Software also allows automated fragment collection of the separated PCR products for further molecular analysis such as DNA sequencing, cloning, etc. Navigator Software maintains an electronic record of the fragment collection parameters such as fragment destination (vial), volume collected and collection parameters. (Fragment Collector)