Advances in molecular techniques for Cryptosporidium genotyping

Cryptosporidium,a protozoan of Apicomplexan that invades the gastrointestinal epithelium of humans and a wide variety of animals, causes self-limiting diarrhea but sometimes severe diarrhea in immuno-competent humans thus to pose a significant public health risk. Recently with the development of molecular bi-ology, more and more molecular techniques have been used in genotyping Cryptosporidium due to their high res-olution, sensitivity and specificity. These tools will play an important role in tracking infection sources,charac-terizing the transmission dynamics, and making effective intervention strategies for public health. This review summarized the advances of some PCR-based techniques mainly used in Cryptosporidium genotyping. [ Key words ] Cryptosporidium; Genotyping techniques ; Principle; Application Key words: Cryptosporidium; Genotyping techniques ; Principle; Application