mPSQed

Molecular-based diagnostic assays are the gold standard for infectious diseases today, since they allow a rapid and sensitive identification and typing of various pathogens. While PCR can be designed to be specific for a certain pathogen, a subsequent sequence analysis is frequently required for confirmation or typing. The design of appropriate PCR-based assays is a complex task, especially when conserved discriminating polymorphisms are rare or if the number of types which need to be differentiated is high. One extremely useful but underused method for this purpose is the multiplex pyrosequencing technique. mPSQed is a program developed at the Robert Koch Institute and targeted at facilitating the creation of such assays.