Progress in understanding and managing QPX disease outbreaks hard clams ( Mercenaria mercenaria ) has been limited by lack of insight into basic aspects the biology ecology opportunistic pathogen Mucochytrium quahogii (formerly or Quahog Parasite Unknown). One barrier is that while several methods have able to detect M. seawater sediment, its abundance was typically too low for reliable quantif...

BACKGROUND Laboratory diagnosis of Chlamydophila psittaci, an important turkey respiratory pathogen, is difficult. To facilitate the diagnosis, a nested PCR-enzyme immunoassay (PCR-EIA) was developed to detect the Cp. psittaci outer membrane protein A (ompA) gene in pharyngeal swabs. METHODS The fluorescein-biotin labelled PCR products were immobilized on streptavidin-coated microtiter plates...

The development of sensitive, rapid, and accurate diagnostic methods for vivax malaria is essential for the effective control of malaria in the Republic of Korea, where vivax malaria patients usually show low parasitemia. In this study, a TaqMan-based real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method was established and compared with other PCR-based assays, including nested PCR, loop-mediated is...

A traditional nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay specific for eastern equine encephalomyelitis (EEE) virus was designed to multiplex with a previously described West Nile (WN) virus nested RT-PCR assay. Differentiation of EEE and WN was based on base pair size of the amplified product. One hundred fifty-seven mammalian and avian brain tissues were tested by EE...

The herpes simplex viruses types 1 and 2 (HSV-1 and HSV-2) and varicella-zoster virus (VZV) can cause life-threatening infections of the central nervous system and lead to severe infections in immunocompromised subjects and newborns. In these cases, rapid diagnosis is crucial. We developed three different real-time PCR assays based on TaqMan chemistry for the LightCycler instrument to detect HS...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Several polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based techniques for tracking minimal residual disease (MRD) in B-lymphoproliferative disorders have been recently proposed. These procedures show significant variation in sensitivity and specificity. We describe an alternative assay based on fluorescent PCR combined with capillary electrophoresis and GeneScan analysis, to identi...

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK In recent years, the diagnosis of toxoplasmosis has been improved by Real-time PCR assays. In this study we compared the performances of two Real-time PCRs (FRET and TaqMan protocols) already described in the literature, and one nested-PCR, currently used in our laboratory for the molecular diagnosis of toxoplasmosis. METHODS We evaluated the sensitivity and the...

Diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is difficult in cases with an unusual presentation and often requires a lung biopsy. The goal of this study was to determine the clinical usefulness of nested PCR on lung tissue for the diagnosis of pulmonary TB. Clinical and laboratory data were reviewed from patients who underwent diagnostic lung biopsies, followed by nested TB PCR on formalin-fixed pa...