BACKGROUND Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a fatal disease caused by feline coronavirus (FCoV). FCoVs are divided into two serotypes with markedly different infection rates among cat populations around the world. A baculovirus-expressed type-specific domain of the spike proteins of FCoV was used to survey the infection of the two viruses over the past eight years in Taiwan. RESULTS An ...

In this study, we performed fliC PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) to investigate whether this technique would be better than classic serotyping for the characterization of the H antigen in enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains. We showed that the fliC genes from ETEC strains can be characterized by restriction analysis of their polymorphism. Only one allele of the f...

We compared four phenotypic and six genotypic methods for distinguishing Campylobacter jejuni strains from animals and humans involved in four epidemics. Based on a comparison with epidemiologic data, the methods that correctly identified all strains in three milkborne outbreaks and one waterborne outbreak were heat-stable and heat-labile serotyping; multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MEE); DNA...

Capnocytophaga canimorsus is a dog oral commensal that causes rare but severe infections in humans. C. canimorsus was recently shown to be endowed with a capsular polysaccharide implicated in resistance to the innate immune system of the host. Here, we developed the first C. canimorsus capsular serotyping scheme. We describe nine different serovars (A to I), and this serotyping scheme allowed t...

Salmonella enterica serovar Pullorum/Gallinarum is an important infectious pathogen that has caused widespread problems for chicken industry. Traditional Salmonella serotyping is an expensive and time-consuming process. In this study, we developed a rapid one-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method to identify S. Pullorum/Gallinarum. The PCR-based assay focuses on flhB, which shows a defici...

We report the case of an occasional intravenous drug user who developed two successive hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections. The first infection led to seroconversion (anti-HCV antibodies detected) and the detection of HCV RNA in serum. After a spontaneous recovery (normalization of alanine aminotransferase levels and HCV RNA clearance), a second HCV infection was observed, with the recurrence of...

OBJECTIVE Knowledge of Bordetella pertussis circulating in Latin America is limited. Therefore, the goal of this study was to use pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and serotyping to characterize B. pertussis strains isolated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS This study, conducted between 2006 and 2008, analyzed 652 nasopharyngeal swabs from suspected pertussis cases and contacts, colle...

There are over 90 different capsular serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus). As well as being a tool for understanding pneumococcal epidemiology, capsular serotyping can provide useful information for vaccine efficacy and impact studies. The Quellung reaction is the gold standard method for pneumococcal capsular serotyping. The method involves testing a pneumococcal cell suspe...

A collection of 829 isolates of Providencia stuartii, mostly from urological specimens of patients in 12 hospitals, were O serotyped. Hospitals varied in serotype distribution, but most isolates (97%) fell into one or another of 14 O types of P. stuartii. One type (O63) was found in 10 hospitals, and six types (O4, O17, O25, O52, O55, O56) were found in 5 or more hospitals. These seven types we...

Dengue has become a global public health problem and a sensitive diagnostic test for early phase detection can be life saving. An internally controlled, generic real-time PCR was developed and validated by testing serial dilutions of a DENV positive control RNA in the presence of a fixed amount of IC with results showing a good linearity (R(2) = 0.9967) and a LOD of at least 1.95 × 10(4) copies...