We evaluated two commercial human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV) Western blot (WB; immunoblot) kits, Cambridge Biotech Corp. (CBC) and Diagnostic Biotechnology Ltd. (DBL). Both methods employ HTLV type I (HTLV-I) viral lysate and rgp21. The DBL WB kit also distinguishes between HTLV-I and HTLV-II antibodies, using an HTLV-I-specific and an HTLV-II-specific recombinant. Fifty weakly reactive H...

Diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is important for patient management and prevention of new infections. The number of test kits available for the detection of HIV antibodies is unprecedented. In order to identify appropriate test kits, we evaluated a variety of commercial kits manufactured abroad as well as in India. The plasma and serum specimens (n=264) were collected ...

BACKGROUND Gastrin measurements are performed primarily for the diagnosis of gastrin-producing tumors, gastrinomas, which cause the Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (ZES). Gastrin circulates as several bioactive peptides, however, and the peptide pattern in gastrinoma patients often deviates from normal. Therefore, it is necessary to measure all forms of gastrin. CONTENT Only immunoassays are usefu...

Differences in the composition of the gut microbiota have been associated with a range of diseases using culture-independent methods. Reliable extraction of nucleic acid is a key step in identifying the composition of the faecal microbiota. Five widely used commercial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) extraction kits (QIAsymphony® Virus/Bacteria Midi Kit (kit QS), ZR Fecal DNA MiniPrep™ (kit Z), QIAa...

The performance of two commercial real-time PCR kits for the detection of Mycoplasma genitalium was evaluated in comparison to an in-house real-time PCR assay. Concordances of 96% and 93% were found for the TIB MOLBIOL and the Diagenode assays, respectively, compared to the results of the in-house assay.

In this short communication we report a quick, cost-free method of purification of DNA fragments from agarose gel. Unlike those procedures that involve commercial kits, this method uses glass wool or absorbent cotton to filter agarose gel during a quick spinning-down of DNA, thus significantly simplifying the routine practice of many molecular biologists and decreasing the cost.