background :   ampc β-lactamases are important cephalosporinases chromosomally encoded in many of enterobacteriaceae and a few other organisms where they mediate resistance to cephalothin, cefazolin, cefoxitin and penicillins. the six different families of plasmid-mediated ampc β-lactamases have been described, but no phenotypic test can discriminate among them. ampc multiplex pcr has been succ...

In this study, the accuracy of two phenotypic tests, API Staph ID 32 and Staph-Zym, was determined for identification of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) from bovine milk samples in comparison with identification based on DNA-sequencing. A total of 172 CNS isolated from bovine milk were classified into 17 species. The most frequently isolated species based on rpoB sequencing were Staphylo...

Genome-wide association studies have helped us identify thousands of common variants associated with several widespread complex diseases. However, for most traits, these variants account for only a small fraction of phenotypic variance or heritability. Next-generation sequencing technologies are being used to identify additional rare variants hypothesized to have higher effect sizes than the al...

INTRODUCTION The emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and, more recently, extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is widely considered a serious threat to global TB control. Over 400,000 new cases of MDR-TB occur each year and, although their rates are currently unknown, XDR-TB cases have been detected in every country where there is capacity to detect them (including Canada). ...

Beef cattle breeders are increasingly being offered gene marker tests for important traits in the breeding objective. They must make an economically rational decision whether to use these tests. Besides a potential immediate effect in seedstock sales, gene marker tests will affect the genetic improvement rate in the population. To examine the returns in a multi-trait breeding objective a pseudo...

The involvement of dopamine neurotransmission in behavioral responses to novelty is suggested by reports that reward is related to increased dopamine activity, that dopamine modulates exploratory behavior in animals, and that Parkinson's disease patients report diminished responses to novelty. Some studies have reported that polymorphisms of the human dopamine D4 receptor (D4R) gene are associa...

Recent studies have shown that chromogenic cephalosporin tests are inferior to disc zone edge tests in detecting penicillinase in Staphylococcus aureus isolates, resulting in a change to CLSI and EUCAST guidelines in 2012. We sought to confirm these findings using Australian isolates and compare the performance of the CLSI and EUCAST methods, which use different disc strengths, penicillin at 10...

Accurate detection of methicillin resistance (MR) in coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS) is of utmost importance as infections due to CoNS are on the rise. Various phenotypic methods have been described for detecting mecA mediated MR with varying performance characteristics. The present study was designed to evaluate the performance of oxacillin and cefoxitin disc diffusion / MIC test and o...

17 Recent studies have shown that chromogenic cephalosporin tests are inferior to disc zone edge tests in 18 detecting penicillinase in Staphylococcus aureus isolates resulting in a change to CLSI and EUCAST 19 guidelines in 2012. We sought to confirm these findings using Australian isolates and compare the 20 performance of the CLSI and EUCAST methods which use different disc strengths, penici...

A total of 193 strains representing 14 different Aeromonas genomospecies were evaluated for 63 phenotypic properties to create useful tables for the reference identification of mesophilic aeromonads. Only 9 of 62 biochemical tests (14%) yielded uniform results, and the fermentation of certain carbohydrates was found to be linked to specific species. A number of unusual or aberrant properties fo...