The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) has facilitated the detection of unculturable microorganisms in virtually any environmental source and has thus been used extensively in the assessment of environmental microbial diversity. This technique relies on the assumption that the gene sequences present in the environment are complementary to the "universal" primers used in their amplification. The re...

Our understanding of thermophile diversity is based predominantly on PCR studies of community DNA. "Universal" and domain-specific rRNA gene PCR primers have historically been used for the assessment of microbial diversity without adequate regard to the degree of specificity of primer pairs to different prokaryotic groups. In a reassessment of the published primers commonly used for "universal"...

The nifH gene is the most widely sequenced marker gene used to identify nitrogen-fixing Bacteria and Archaea. Numerous PCR primers have been designed to amplify nifH, but a comprehensive evaluation of nifH PCR primers has not been performed. We performed an in silico analysis of the specificity and coverage of 51 universal and 35 group-specific nifH primers by using an aligned database of 23,84...

Eukaryotic 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene primers that feature a wide coverage are critical in detecting the composition of eukaryotic microscopic organisms in ecosystems. Here, we predicted 18S rRNA primers based on consecutive conserved sites and evaluated their coverage efficiency and scope of application to different eukaryotic groups. After evaluation, eight of them were considered as quali...

Hemoplasma is a tribal name for epierythrocytic mycoplasmas including Mycoplasma suis and M. parvum which are currently recognized in pigs as causative of porcine hemoplasmosis. Here, we report a real-time PCR assay for differential detection of these swine hemoplasma species by using allelic primers in the16S rRNA gene, and its application to survey for hemoplasma infections in pigs. Universal...

this study was conducted to detect the common bacteria implicated in bovine mastitis in bulk tank milk by polymerase chain reaction (pcr). forty-four milk samples from bulk tank milk were obtained and submitted to our laboratory. to detect staphylococcus aureus, streptococcus agalactiae, streptococcus dysgalactiae, escherichia coli, streptococcus uberis, and streptococcus parauberis, two sets o...