Table 1.

Limitations and advantages of molecular diagnostic techniques

	CONS	PROS	Application examples
NASBA	Needs the bacteria to be viable	Cheap	Detection of enterotoxin related genes from Bacillus sp. in milk [18]
	Needs the gene to be expressed RNA handling might be troublesome	Sensitive
TaqMan	Cost effective for a limited number of DNA species	Easy to use	Detection of Salmonella sp. in ground meat [14]
	The number of simultaneous DNA species detectable is limited by the fluorophores SNP detection not always reliable	Quick result
High density microarrays	Expensive	Detects the highest number of DNA species simultaneously	Assessment of E. Coli pathotype [44]
	Slower than NASBA and TaqMan PCR
LDR-UA	Slower than NASBA and TaqMan PCR	Highest performance in SNP detection	Detection of GMO contamination in food and cyanobacteria in water [4, 6]
		Highly sensitive
		Very flexible