A microneutralization assay using an ELISA-based endpoint assessment (ELISA-MN) is widely used to measure the serological response to influenza virus infection and vaccination. We have developed an alternative microneutralization assay for influenza virus using a quantitative reverse transcription PCR-based endpoint assessment (qPCR-MN) in order to improve upon technical limitations associated ...

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the major cause of epidemic nonbacterial gastroenteritis. Although quantitative (real-time) reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) is widely used for detecting HuNoVs, it only detects the presence of viral RNA and does not indicate viral infectivity. Human blood group antigens (HBGAs) have been identified as receptors/co-receptors for both HuNoVs and Tulane virus (TV...

This study reports on the first quantification of avian influenza virus in the organs of mute swans that died during the epizootic of avian influenza (H5N1) between January and April 2006 in the Czech Republic. The quantitative real-time Reverse Transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) assay based on a TaqMan probe was developed for a rapid detection and quantification of avian influenza virus RNA in clinic...

Sweet potato is a hexaploid heterozygote with complex genetic background, self-pollination infertility, and cross incompatibility, which makes linkage analysis quite difficult. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide new strategy for gene mapping cloning in sweet potato. Storage root flesh color (SRFC) an important sensory evaluation, correlates storage composition, such as starch, antho...

Objective(s): To explore the correlation between expression patterns and functions of miR-383 and LDHA in hepatocellular cancer (HCC). Materials and Methods: We detected the expression of miR-383 and LDHA in 30 HCC tissues and their matched adjacent normal tissues using qRT-PCR. Then we performed MTT assay, foci formation assay, transwell migration assay, glucose uptake assay and lactate produc...

Using an anchored oligo(dT) based RT-PCR approach we quantified endogenous expression of ten microRNAs in six cell lines. This identified a miRNA, miR-200c, with variable expression, ranging from undetectable in MDA-MB-231 and HT1080 to highly expressed in MCF7. The variable expression provided a model system to investigate endogenous interactions between miRNAs and their computationally predic...

Gene expression analysis provides significant insight to understand regulatory mechanisms of biology, yet acquisition and reproduction of quality data, as well as data confirmation and verification remain challenging due to a lack of proper quality controls across different assay platforms. We present a set of six universal external RNA quality controls for microbial mRNA expression analysis th...

The qRT-PCR has been widely accepted as the assay of choice for mRNA quantification. For conventional practice, housekeeping genes have been applied as internal reference for data normalization and analysis since the technology appeared. However, housekeeping genes vary under different conditions and environmental stimuli and no commonly accepted housekeeping gene references are available. Accu...

Clinical staging of cervical lymph nodes from patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) has only 50% accuracy compared with definitive pathologic assessment. Consequently, both clinically positive and clinically negative patients frequently undergo neck dissections that may not be necessary. To address this potential overtreatment, sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy is cu...