Abstract:Lactic acid bacteria is a type of important probiotic bacteria found in the intestines of healthy humans and animals.It plays a crucial role in maintaining the dynamic equilibrium of the intestinal microecology.Because their functions are strain-specific，it is essential to develop a rapid and reliable molecular marker technique for the identification of different species of lactic acid bacteria.Multilocus sequence typing(MLST)is a method employed for bacterial gene typing and is based on DNA sequencing.Moreover，MLST can simultaneously identify strains at the subspecies level and has been used for the analysis of the genetic diversity of lactic acid bacteria.The aim of the present study was to describe the basic principle，methods，advantages and disadvantages of MLST，while highlighting the suitability of MLST for the identification and classification of lactic acid bacteria.