Pathogen typing in the genomics era: MLST and the future of molecular epidemiology

► We review the molecular methods, analytical approaches and contributions of MLST. ► We compare MLST to whole genome sequence typing approaches (WGST). ► We provide exemplar references of the applications MLST. ► MLST is instrumental in indentifying pathogens and understanding their evolution. ► Less expensive sequencing costs are moving a transition from MLST to WGST.