The present invention also relates to an assay for detecting and identifying micro-organisms, and in particular bacteria. The present invention also relates to an assay for detecting micro-organisms, and in particular bacteria, in a sample, and for the discrimination thereof. More in particular the present invention relates to an assay for the molecular identification of bacteria according to Gram-, genus- species- and strain-specificity based on multigenotypic testing of bacterial DNA from human, animal or environmental samples.