Molecular biology and the pathologist. General principles and applications.

This review article contains two parts. In the first part, molecular biological principles and techniques are discussed. These include nucleic acid isolation, restriction endonucleases, various types of hybridization methods, and restriction fragment-length polymorphisms. The second section focuses on the application of these techniques to genetic analyses, microbiological diagnosis, cell differentiation, and tumor biology. It is our hope to provide the reader with a broad understanding of the tools and an appreciation of their applications.