Assessment of Molecular Techniques in Probiotic Study

The concept of probiotic has been around for more than century. Their impact on human nutrition is still an emerging science, and knowledge of human intestinal micro flora is still growing. To determine the positive effect of probiotic strain, necessary tools are required to monitor the specific strain in the intestines. The addition of molecular methods to conventional microbiological methods for identification of the ecological makeup of a microbial community has shown significant improvements in the accuracy of identification and enumeration of microbes. This minireview will focus on commonly used molecular techniques for analyzing human intestinal micro flora and some of the techniques used in studying probiotic strains for clinical application.