Background: Currently, ARTs are of indispensable importance in treatment of human infertility. While ARTs are considered to be safe, some studies suggest that ARTs manipulations may perturb the epigenetic information and subsequently the health of the offspring. To examine these events further, this study was conducted to assess the effect of superovulation, in vitro culture and vitrification o...

A monoclonal antibody (MAb)-based antigen capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was compared with the routine culture methodology for the detection of Campylobacter fetus subspecies from bovine and ovine field samples inoculated into Clark's transport enrichment medium (TEM). The work was a collaboration between two different diagnostic laboratories, one in Canada and the other in E...

BACKGROUND Superficial culture has a high negative predictive value in the assessment of catheter tip colonization (CC) and catheter-related bloodstream infection (C-RBSI). However, the process of hub culture requires the hubs to be swabbed, and this carries a risk of dislodging the biofilm. At present, most catheter hubs are closed by needleless connectors (NCs) that are periodically replaced....

A simple and sensitive method for quantification of nanomolar copper with a detection limit of 1.2×10(-10)M and a linear range from 10(-9) to 10(-8)M is reported. For the most useful analytical concentration of quantum dots, 1160μg/ml, a 1/Ksv value of 11μM Cu(2+) was determined. The method is based on the interaction of Cu(2+) with glutathione-capped CdTe quantum dots (CdTe-GSH QDs) synthesize...

A simple method is described for growing rat embryos in vitro for 48 hr from head-fold to early limb-bud stages at rates of development and protein synthesis indistinguishable from those in vivo. Culture of the embryos can be continued for longer periods but at a reduced growth rate. Preheating the culture serum to 56 degrees C for 30 min improves embryonic development, but raising the culture ...

AIM Culture remains important for the detection and typing of Clostridium difficile. Culture of C. difficile spores can be enhanced on media supplemented with a germinant. Despite this, unsupplemented media continues to be used in some laboratories. The aim of this study was to quantify the effect of the known germinant sodium taurocholate on recovery of C. difficile spores and to determine if ...

The Hepatitis C virus E1 and E2 envelope proteins are the major players in all events required for virus entry into target cells. In addition, the recently developed HCV cell culture system has indicated that E1E2 heterodimer formation is a prerequisite for viral particle production. In this paper, we explored a new genetic approach to construct intergenotypic 2a/1b chimeras, maintaining the st...

Human rhinovirus species C (HRV-C) was recently discovered using molecular diagnostic techniques and is associated with lower respiratory tract disease, particularly in children. HRV-C cannot be propagated in immortalized cell lines, and currently sinus organ culture is the only system described that is permissive to HRV-C infection ex vivo. However, the utility of organ culture for studying HR...