Data mining tools for Salmonella characterization: application to gel-based fingerprinting analysis

Background Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is currently the most widely and routinely used method by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health labs in the United States for Salmonella surveillance and outbreak tracking. Major drawbacks of commercially available PFGE analysis programs have been their difficulty in dealing with large datasets and the limited availability of analysis tools. There exists a need to develop new analytical tools for PFGE data mining in order to make full use of valuable data in large surveillance databases.