Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is the etiological agent of SARS. It is believed that SARS-CoV originates from wild animals. We have developed a multitarget real-time Taqman reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assay for the quantitative detection of SARS-CoV. The sequences of the Taqman probes with a minor groove binder and the corresponding primers wer...

Two different real-time quantitative PCR (RTQ-PCR) approaches were applied for PCR-based quantification of Staphylococcus aureus cells by targeting the thermonuclease (nuc) gene. Purified DNA extracts from pure cultures of S. aureus were quantified in a LightCycler system using SYBR Green I. Quantification proved to be less sensitive (60 nuc gene copies/microl) than using a fluorigenic TaqMan p...

BACKGROUND The clinical diagnosis of meningococcal disease (MCD) can be difficult. Non-culture methods like the previous ELISA meningococcal PCR improved case confirmation rates, but were not ideal. A Taqman meningococcal PCR, using DNA extracted from serum (S-Taqman), which has an improved sensitivity compared to the ELISA method in vitro, was introduced into clinical practice in July 1997. A ...

Thrombophilia is a multigenic disease in which the combination of genetic polymorphisms increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The rapid identification of these genetic combinations requires high-throughput analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The TaqMan fluorogenic 5'-->*3' nuclease assay (PE/Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) with custom-designed primers, probes an...

Succession of ecotypes, physiologically diverse strains with negligible rRNA sequence divergence, may explain the dominance of small, red-pigmented (phycoerythrin-rich) cyanobacteria in the autotrophic picoplankton of deep lakes (C. Postius and A. Ernst, Arch. Microbiol. 172:69-75, 1999). In order to test this hypothesis, it is necessary to determine the abundance of specific ecotypes or genoty...

Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (Lynch Syndrome, LS) is a genetic disorder, where family members are at high risk of developing cancer of the colon, endometrium, small intestine and urinary tract. The cause for LS is due to constitutional mutations in several mismatch repair genes (MMR) mainly in MLH1, MSH2 and MSH6. The Polish population has been well characterized by a large study c...