Fusarium wilts of strawberry, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. fragariae, is a serious soil-borne disease. Fusarium wilt causes dramatic yield losses in commercial strawberry production and it is a very stubborn disease to control. Reliable chemical control of strawberry Fusarium wilt disease is not yet available. Moreover, other well-known F. oxysporum have different genetic information fro...

A set of synthetic oligodeoxyribonucleotide (oligo) probes, OAT18, OMS1 and OAT24 carrying the (TGG)6, (GGAT)4 and (GACA)6 repeat motifs, respectively, was used to analyze the variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) loci in the genomes of Oncorhyncus mykiss (rainbow trout; family Salmonidae), Oreochromis mossambicus and Oreochromis niloticus (both tilapia belonging to family Cichlidae). Of all the...

Recent taxonomic developments, based on 16s and 23s rRNA gene sequences, have divided the family Chlamydiaceae into two genera and nine species, of which five have been found to infect humans. Few simple methods are available to detect and identify all species sensitively and specifically. In this study the suitability of the omp2 gene as a target for molecular identification of Chlamydiaceae i...

Infection by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, is widespread in humans and many other warm-blooded animals. More than half billion of world human population has serum antibodies to T. gondii and Sheep and goats are more widely infected with T. gondii. T. gondii infection can be diagnosed indirectly with serological methods and directly by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), hybridization, ...

The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effects of polymorphisms of luteinizing hormone receptor (LHR) and follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) genes, evaluated by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism in European-Zebu composite beef heifers from six different breed compositions. The polymorphism site analysis from digestion with HhaI and ...

Species-specific identification of human tapeworm infections is important for public health purposes, because prompt identification of Taenia solium carriers may prevent further human cysticercosis infections (a major cause of acquired epilepsy). Two practical methods for the differentiation of cestode proglottids, (i) routine embedding, sectioning, and hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining and (ii) ...

As contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) is spreading fast in many African countries, there is an increasing demand for rapid and sensitive diagnostic methods that can be used to confirm the initial diagnosis based on clinical symptoms or pathological findings. Two PCR-based diagnostic systems for identification of the infectious agent, Mycoplasma mycoides subsp. mycoides SC (M. mycoides SC)...

OBJECTIVE To investigate antibiotic resistance and genetic relatedness of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated in a general hospital in Kuwait over a period from 1996 to 1998 and 2001. MATERIAL AND METHODS The isolates were characterized by antibacterial susceptibility testing, coagulase serotyping, coagulase gene polymorphism (coag-RFLP) and pulsed-field gel electropho...

Ten universal primer pairs of the plant chloroplast genome were used to amplify the chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) non-coding regions in eight mulberry (Morus spp.) genotypes, including M. mongolica, M. bombycis, M. alba, M. atropurpurea and M. multicaulis. Subsequently, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products were digested by seven restriction enzymes and the trnD-trnT fragment for sequence alig...

Serologic ABO blood typing is routinely performed using anti-A and anti-B sera to distinguish four phenotypes (A, B, AB, and O). Restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) and DNA sequence studies offer the possibility of direct ABO genotyping. We used polymerase chain reaction-RFLP analysis to determine the frequency of O(1) and O(2) alleles in 82 unrelated blood donors in São Paulo, Br...