Introduction: Infectious diseases are one of the main causes of death worldwide. This has driven scientists to invest in extraction and identification of antimicrobial agents from natural toxins and presentation of novel antibiotics and vaccines. The aim of the current study is to investigate the antibacterial and cytotoxicity effects of the protective antigen domain 4 (PAD4) from Bacillus anth...

Gold nanoparticles were coated with a short peptide to promote intracellular delivery of membrane-impermeable proteins. Through microscopy and enzyme assays, we demonstrated the particles were able to transport functional enzymes into a variety of cell lines. Significantly, the transported proteins were able to escape from endosomes. Moreover, these particles showed no apparent cytotoxicity.

Multivariate density moments (correlators) of arbitrary order are obtained for the multi-plicative self-similar cascade. This result is based on the calculation by Greiner, Eggers and Lipa (reference [1]) where the correlators of the logarithms of the particle densities have been obtained. The density correlators, more suitable for comparison with multiparticle data, appear to have even simpler...

OBJECTIVES This study aimed at evaluating the AID ESBL line probe assay for the detection of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) and KPC carbapenemase genes in Enterobacteriaceae. METHODS The AID ESBL line probe assay was verified for accuracy of its probes using PCR products from clinical ESBL Enterobacteriaceae strains harbouring TEM, SHV and CTX-M ESBL genes and KPC genes and mutant fusio...

We evaluated two methods from Roche and Promega for RNA extraction prior to the genotypic detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 resistance by line probe assay (LiPA). Fifty plasma RNA extracts were processed in parallel by LiPA. Results obtained by the Roche method were superior in the proportion of amplified samples, the percentage of mutated samples, and band intensity.

BACKGROUND Clinical relevance of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) is increasing worldwide including in Saudi Arabia. A high species diversity of NTM's has been noticed in a recent study. However, the identification in diagnostic laboratories is mostly limited to common species. The impact of NTM species diversity on clinical outcome is so far neglected in most of the clinical settings. METHO...

The advent of the PCR has revolutionized many molecular biological techniques, including single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection. Interest in the detection and discovery of human polymorphisms increased further with the complete sequencing of the human genome. The main applications for SNP detection include diagnosis of genetic disease and identification of functional mutations in genes ...

We present an on-chip electrophoretic assay for rapid and high sensitivity nucleic acid (NA) detection. The assay uses isotachophoresis (ITP) to enhance NA hybridization and an ionic spacer molecule to subsequently separate reaction products. In the first stage, the probe and target focus and mix rapidly in free solution under ITP. The reaction mixture then enters a region containing a sieving ...

A line-focus ultrasonic SH-wave probe is developed for possible application to TOFD method. The probe is composed of a quarteror half-cylindrical wedge and a piezoelectric transducer adhered to the cylindrical surface of the wedge. An SH-wave pulse with cylindrical wave front is generated by the transducer, transmitted to the wedge, and focused on a line at the bottom surface of the wedge. Henc...