“…Several molecular methods that alleviate this inconvenience have recently been described: PCR-Elisa method based on the 16S rRNA to detect the most common Bifidobacterium species in humans (Malinen et al, 2002); pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and PCR targeting the 16S rRNA (Roy et al, 1996;Bonjoch et al, 2004); PCR in denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) targeting the transaldolase gene for identification, detection and enumeration of human Bifidobacterium species (Requena et al, 2002); PCR-RFLP method based on the 16SrRNA to detect the most common species from animal and human origins (Delcenserie et al, 2004;Roy and Sirois, 2000), and real-time quantitative PCR from the 16S or the transaldolase gene (Requena et al, 2002). They have also been used in the detection of human Bifidobacterium species from feces Requena et al, 2002, Mullié et al, 2003Venema and Maathuis, 2003), of bifidobacteria as probiotics (Brigidi et al, 2003;Fasoli et al, 2003) or as fecal indicators in waters (Bernhard and Field, 2000).…”