The objective of this study was to develop a rapid, reproducible, and robust method for detecting Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis in poultry samples. First, for the extraction and purification of DNA from the preenrichment culture, four methods (boiling, alkaline lysis, Nucleospin, and Dynabeads DNA Direct System I) were compared. The most effective method was then combined with a real...

BACKGROUND Several methods for detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs; e.g., denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and denaturing HPLC) are indirectly based on the principle of differential melting of heteroduplex DNA. We present a method for detecting SNPs that is directly based on this principle. METHODS We used a double-stranded DNA-specific fluorescent dye, SYBR Green I (SYB...

High background fluorescence and unspecific staining hampered the epifluorescence enumeration of bacteria in 45% of the tested soil and sediment samples with 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) and polycarbonate membrane filters. These problems of the determination of total cell counts can be circumvented by using green fluorescent high-affinity nucleic acid dyes and aluminum oxide membrane fi...

Lyme disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi is the most common tick-borne disease in the US and Europe. Unlike most bacteria, measurements of growth and viability of B. burgdorferi are challenging. The current B. burgdorferi viability assays based on microscopic counting and PCR are cumbersome and tedious and cannot be used in a high throughput format. Here, we evaluated several commonly used v...

Background: Watermelon silver mottle virus (WSMoV), which belongs to the genus Tospovirus, causes significant loss in Cucurbitaceae plants. Objectives: Development of a highly sensitive and reliable detection method for WSMoV. Materials and Methods: Recombinant plasmids for targeting the sequence of nucleocapsid protein gene of WSMoV were constructed. SYBR Green I real-time PCR was established...

Qualitative detection of negative hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA has been used widely to demonstrate HCV replication. However, relative quantitation of both positive and negative HCV RNA strands has never been reported for studying viral genome replication. A strand specific real-time PCR carried out in the highly conserved 5'-non-coding region of HCV genome and monitored either by the DNA binding...

A monolithic capillary electrophoresis system with integrated on-chip fluorescence detector has been microfabricated on a silicon substrate. Photodiodes in the silicon substrate measure fluorescence emitted from eluting molecules. The device incorporates an on-chip thin-film interference filter that prevents excitation light from inhibiting the fluorescence detection. A transparent AZO conducti...

A monolithic capillary electrophoresis system with integrated on-chip fluorescence detection has been microfabricated on a silicon substrate. Photodiodes in the silicon substrate measure fluorescence emitted from eluting molecules. An on-chip thin film interference filter prevents excitation light from inhibiting the fluorescence detection. A transparent conducting ground plane prevents the hig...

Flow cytometry can rapidly quantitate bacteria and discriminate them from debris. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag, Switzerland) have developed a standard flow cytometric staining protocol and a corresponding BD AccuriTM C6 software analysis template to discriminate bacteria from debris in drinking water samples. The template employs a single, ...