Several other PCR-dependent and independent techniques
have also been used to study toxic cyanobacterial
communities in their natural habitats (for details of these
techniques, the reader is referred to Abed, 2009). These
techniques provided information on the ecological,
geographic and temporal distribution of these cyanobacteria
and their relationship to other coexisting organisms.
Fingerprinting techniques such as denaturing gel gradient
gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and terminal fragment length
polymorphism (T-RFLP) have been used to characterize
toxic cyanobacteria in different lakes (Kardinaal et al., 2007;
Neilan, 2002). DNA microarrays or DNA chips allowed the
researchers to rapidly screen for the presence or absence
and for the levels of gene expression