Identifications of pathogens—a bioinformatic point of view

Over the past 15 years, microbiology has undergone a momentous shift toward molecular methods. New sequences appear daily in the public databases and new computer tools and web servers are published on a regular basis. Major advances in molecular identifications of pathogens have been made because new biotechnology methods have appeared that often require a thorough in silico analysis of sequences. However, significant difficulties partly remain in developing efficient methods because the public databases contain many poorly annotated or partial sequences (often of environmental origin) and also because there are few dedicated web servers and curated databases.