Standardized cytomegalovirus (CMV) DNA quantification is important for managing CMV disease. We evaluated the performance of the Real-Q CMV Quantification Kit (Real-Q assay; BioSewoom, Korea) using whole blood (WB), with nucleic acid extraction using MagNA Pure 96 (Roche Diagnostics, Germany). Real-time PCR was performed on two platforms: the 7500 Fast real-time PCR (7500 Fast; Applied Biosyste...

ABSTRACT Reliable detection and quantification of barley and cereal yellow dwarf viruses (YDVs) is a critical component in managing yellow dwarf diseases in small grain cereal crops. The method currently used is enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), using antisera against the coat proteins that are specific for each of the various YDVs. Recently, quantitative real-time reverse-transcriptio...

Synovial biomarker analysis in rheumatoid arthritis can be used to evaluate drug effect in clinical trials of novel therapeutic agents. Previous studies of synovial gene expression for these studies have mainly relied on histological methods including immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. To increase the reliability of mRNA measurements on small synovial tissue samples, we developed a...

Coxiella burnetii, an obligate intracellular parasite with a worldwide distribution, is the causative agent of Q fever in humans. We tested a total of 368 samples (placental bits, genital swabs, fecal swabs, and urine and serum samples) collected from women (n = 74) with spontaneous abortions for C. burnetii by a PCR assay targeting IS1111, the repetitive transposon-like region of C. burnetii (...

We recently described successful molecular diagnosis of B. burgdorferi DNA by nested PCR in urine in patient-derived samples only after extraction with DNAzol (1). The aim of this study was to examine whether Borrelia burgdorferi DNA can also be detected in urine by quantitative one-step real-time PCR (Q-PCR). Q-PCR was performed after extraction with DNAzol (Molecular Research Center Inc., Cin...

Slow and unreliable infection in the greenhouse has been a barrier to research on Armillaria root disease. The existing infection assay takes 7-18 months for detectable infection, during which time the inoculum often dies, resulting in unequal challenge among plants. Because symptom expression and mortality are rare, presence or absence of infection, determined by culturing, is the only datum d...

Q fever is a worldwide zoonotic infection caused by the obligate intracellular bacterium Coxiella burnetii that can course with acute or chronic disease. This series describes 7 cases of acute Q fever admitted in a Portuguese University Hospital between 2014 and 2015. All cases presented with hepatitis and had epidemiological history. Diagnosis was done by PCR on majority (5) and by serology an...

Coxiella burnetiiis an obligate and gram-negative bacteria causing query fever (Q fever) disease, despite the importance of Q fever, there is no universal vaccine against this disease. Therefore, application of the recombinant subunit vaccines which use Com1 and OmpH as immunogenic proteins can be useful in this regard. To perform the current project, Com1 an...