Introduction Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is an emerging infectious pathogen which could lead to haemolytic uremic syndrome. Even though previous studies have compared the performance of CHROMagarTMSTEC to real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in Europe, no study has been done to assess its performance on African isolates. Objectives This project aimed to validate and tes...

Robust dosage PCR (RD-PCR), a duplex and quantitative PCR, detects large heterozygous deletions and duplications in genomic DNA samples. RD-PCR amplifies an endogenous internal control and a target locus. Two of six RD-PCR assays behaved anomalously due to lower yields specific to the targets. The variability was eliminated by heat treatment of the genomic DNA samples in 2x TE solution at 90 de...

Cryptococcus gattii consists of four cryptic species, VGI, VGII, VGIII, and VGIV. Herein, a duplex PCR assay using two primer pairs targeting the vacuolar membrane gene and the intergenic spacer region was developed. It successfully distinguished the cryptic species according to the distinct size of the amplicons.