Isoenzyme Electrophoresis for Parasite Characterization

In the field of parasitology, isozymes are mainly used to characterize and distinguish “strains.” For such a difficult purpose, isozyme data definitely have to be analyzed in genetic terms. Relying on a purely empirical, phenetic reading of the gels amounts to missing about 90% of the information that could be derived from them. If correctly analyzed, isozyme electrophoresis provides an irreplaceable tool in population genetics, and yields information that cannot be obtained by more “fashionable” techniques.