The Microbial Assay for Risk Assessment (MARA) is an innovative system based on an array of 11 different microbial species freeze-dried in a 96-well micro-titre plate format. Developed for testing the toxicity of chemicals, mixtures and environmental samples, the assay employs species of a taxonomically diverse range. In addition to ten prokaryotic species, a eukaryote (yeast) is included in th...

Three bioelectrochemical systems were operated with set anode potentials of +300 mV, +550 mV and +800 mV vs. Standard Hydrogen Electrode (SHE) to test the hypothesis that anode potential influences microbial diversity and is positively associated with microbial biomass and activity. Bacterial and archaeal diversity was characterized using 16 S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, and biofilm thicknes...

BACKGROUND The sensitivity and specificity of 18S rRNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the detection of fungal aetiology of microbial keratitis was determined in thirty patients with clinical diagnosis of microbial keratitis. METHODS Corneal scrapings from patients were used for Gram stain, culture and PCR analysis. PCR was performed with primer pairs targeted to the 18S rRNA gene. The res...

Ecological factors are important determinants of the development and function of anti-pathogen defences. Inflammation is a central part of innate immunity, but the developmental factors that shape the regulation of inflammation are not known. We test the hypothesis that microbial exposures in infancy are associated with high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP) in adulthood using prospective da...

Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is emerging as a powerful monitoring tool in cancer, pregnancy and organ transplantation. Nucleosomal DNA, the predominant form of plasma cfDNA, can be adapted for sequencing via ligation of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) adapters. dsDNA library preparations, however, are insensitive to ultrashort, degraded cfDNA. Drawing inspiration from advances in paleogenomics...

[1] The production of CO2 by soil microorganisms is an important component of the global carbon cycle, and its temperature sensitivity is poorly constrained in global models. To improve our understanding of the factors controlling the temperature dependence of soil microbial respiration, we analyzed the temperature sensitivity of labile soil organic carbon decomposition for 77 soils collected f...

Rapid microbial tests ensure testing in rapid and accurate manners at reasonable costs. The ideal test should achieve detection of certain types of microorganisms that are undetected by the pharmacopoeia-defined sterility tests and its accuracy should be confirmed by regulatory authorities. The use of pharmacopoeia sterility tests is limited since they can detect only microorganisms that are vi...