It is now well established that natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster harbor substantial genetic variation associated with physiological measures of immune function. In no case, however, have intermediate measures of immune function, such as transcriptional activity of immune-related genes, been tested as mediators of phenotypic variation in immunity. In this study, we measured bacteri...

Orientia tsutsugamushi, the cause of scrub typhus, is a major pathogen in the Asia-Pacific region. The severity of infection ranges from mild features to multiorgan failure and death. The aim of this prospective study was to define the O. tsutsugamushi loads in the blood samples of patients with scrub typhus on the day of hospital admission and to determine whether this was associated with dise...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) has overtaken HIV as the biggest infectious disease killer, with the majority of deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. However it is unknown how differences in bacterial load alter host immune profiles in the sputum and blood of TB patients. METHODS 16S ribosomal RNA analysis was used to determine bacterial load in sputum samples obtained from 173 patients with ...

We address the task of detecting bacteria and estimating bacterial load in the human distal lung with fibered confocal fluorescence microscopy (FCFM) and a targeted smartprobe. Bacteria appear as bright dots in the image when exposed to a smartprobe, but they are often difficult to detect due to the presence of background autofluorescence inherent to human lungs. In this study, we create a data...

We evaluated the use of the molecular bacterial load (MBL) assay, for measuring viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum, in comparison with solid agar and liquid culture. The MBL assay provides early information on the rate of decline in bacterial load and has technical advantages over culture in either form.

BACKGROUND Prevalence and load of airway bacteria in stable and exacerbated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been previously studied using microbiological culture. Molecular techniques, such as quantitative PCR (qPCR), may be more informative. METHODS In this study, 373 sputum samples from 134 COPD outpatients were assessed for prevalence and load of typical airway bacteria (H...