Automated pneumococcal MLST using liquid-handling robotics and a capillary DNA sequencer

Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) is used by the Scottish Meningococcus and Pneumococcus Reference Laboratory (SMPRL) as a routine method for the characterization of certain bacterial pathogens. The SMPRL recently started performing MLST on strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae , and here we describe a fully automated method for MLST using a 96-well-format liquid-handling robot and a 96-capillary automated DNA sequencer.