ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we review current strategies used to visualize DNA polymorphisms by electrophoresis-based methods. Each section starts with a short introduction to the principles and the historical development of the respective technique, followed by a summary of the properties, advantages, disadvantages, and application areas of the markers generated. This chapter also provides a survey of the plethora of acronyms for the various DNA profiling techniques at hand. Experimental protocols of commonly used polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based marker systems, comments on technical aspects, reaction parameters, reproducibility, robustness, and transferability of markers, as well as on modifications of the standard techniques, are given in Chapter 4.
