DNA fingerprinting of the intestinal parasite Giardia duodenalis with the M13 phage genome

A DNA fingerprint procedure has been established for the intestinal parasite, Giardia duodenalis. This permits the identification of individual strains from both human and animal sources. Analysis of strain movement, resurgence and variation is now possible. The fingerprint probe is based on the tandem repetitive sequence found in bacteriophage M13 which hybridizes to a set of hypervariable polymorphic minisatellite sequences found in higher eukaryotes. This probe recognizes a weakly homologous set of hypervariable regions in the Giardia genome to provide a DNA fingerprint comparable to those seen in higher eukaryotes.