mainly dependant on the goal of the research and the setting. In
a purely academic environment, it is desirable that the amount of
information gained from the typing is maximized and WGS
increasingly offers that possibility. It is foreseen that this technique
is going to play a major role in the laboratory diagnosis of TB. WGS
has the potential to replace all other DNA-based laboratory methods,
including bacterial genotyping (Medini et al., 2008; Pallen
et al., 2010).
In a routine setting, the costs and laboratory turnaround time
need to be as low as possible with at the same time a reasonable
amount of discriminatory power. Until WGS will be as quick and
affordable as other typing methods, other applications like VNTR
typing can fulfill these needs. Nevertheless, implications of population
genetics and evolution of M. tuberculosis should be considered
to draw informed conclusions on the relationships between the
typed strains.