Microarray-Based Approach for Genome-Wide Survey of Nucleotide Polymorphisms

DNA microarrays can be used to detect polymorphic loci in addition to identifying genes or regions that are absent within a genome. A survey such as this offers greater insight into the level of diversification within a species or population, which is useful in organisms that have nearidentical genomic content but differ in phenotype. The identification of such variable loci can then lead to the characterization of genes linked to unique biological attributes. Here, we describe a competitive hybridization assay using DNA microarrays as a comparative genomics tool to identify nucleotide polymorphisms among closely related strains of Chlamydia trachomatis.