Molecular Diagnostic Tests for Microsporidia

Molecular Diagnostic Tests for Microsporidia

The Microsporidia are a ubiquitous group of eukaryotic obligate intracellular parasites which were recognized over 100 years ago with the description of Nosema bombycis, a parasite of silkworms. It is now appreciated that these organisms are related to the Fungi. Microsporidia infect all major animal groups most often as gastrointestinal pathogens; however they have been reported from every tis...

Molecular phylogeny and evolution of mosquito parasitic Microsporidia (Microsporidia: Amblyosporidae).

Amblyospora species and other aquatic Microsporidia were isolated from mosquitoes, black flies, and copepods and the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene was sequenced. Comparative phylogenetic analysis showed a correspondence between the mosquito host genera and their Amblyspora parasite species. There is a clade of Amblyospora species that infect the Culex host group and a clade of Amblyospora th...

Diagnostic tests for chancroid.

Background The identification of the causative agent of chancroid, Haemophilus ducreyi, was first reported in 1889 by August Ducrey, as a short streptobacillary rod with rounded ends, following experiments in which he autoinoculated patients’ forearms with pus from their genital ulcers. Bezancon et al subsequently inoculated the forearms of human volunteers with culture purified organisms and p...

Diagnostic tests for frailty

A common way of allowing heterogeneity between individuals in models for lifetime data is to introduce an unobservable individual random effect Z. In a proportional hazards framework, the individual’s hazard becomes zhb(t) where hb(t) is the baseline hazard. The random variable Z is often assumed to follow the Gamma or Inverse Gaussian distribution. We develop here diagnostic tests for these as...

Assessing the Validity of Diagnostic Tests