What is Terminal Restriction Length Polymorphism?


Terminal Restriction Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP) was first developed by Liu et al. in 1997. This approach takes advantage of the conserved and variable regions within the ribosomal subunit much the same as other approaches for studying microbial communities. The difference is T-RFLP is a high throughput methodology able to identify microbial communities for a fraction of the cost. However, because this requires powerful computational hardware, large databases, and novel software the approach never met its full potential. Over the last three years In Silico has invested in addressing these difficulties by inventing novel statistical alogorithms, creating large databases, offering phylogenetic sorting, and acquiring high end computational hardware.