TRFLP is one of several molecular methods aimed to generate a fingerprint of an unknown microbial community. Other similar methods include DGGE, TGGE, ARISA, ARDRA, PLFA, etc.
<br>These relatively high throughput methods were developed in order to reduce the cost and effort in analyzing microbial communities using a clone library. The method was first described by Avaniss-Aghajani et al in 1994  and later by Liu in 1997 which employed the amplification of the 16S rDNA target gene from the DNA of several isolated bacteria as well as environmental samples.
<br>Since then the method has been applied for the use of other marker genes such as the functional marker gene pmoA to analyze methanotrophic communities.