BACKGROUND/AIMS Autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is a heterogeneous genetic disorder caused by mutations in the PKD1 and PKD2 genes. Currently, long-range PCR followed by nested PCR and sequencing (LRNS) is the gold standard approach for PKD1 testing. However, LRNS is complicated by the high structural and sequence complexity of PKD1, which makes the procedure for amplificat...

During hopping an early burst can be observed in the EMG from the soleus muscle starting about 45 ms after touch-down. It may be speculated that this early EMG burst is a stretch reflex response superimposed on activity from a supra-spinal origin. We hypothesised that if a stretch reflex indeed contributes to the early EMG burst, then advancing or delaying the touch-down without the subject's k...

We show that the affective experience of touch and the sight of touch can be modulated by cognition, and investigate in an fMRI study where top-down cognitive modulations of bottom-up somatosensory and visual processing of touch and its affective value occur in the human brain. The cognitive modulation was produced by word labels, 'Rich moisturizing cream' or 'Basic cream', while cream was bein...

The aim of the present study was to develop a genetic sex marker for the pointed gourd (Trichosanthes dioica Roxb.) to allow gender determination at any stage in the life cycle. Screening of genomic DNA with intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers was used to discover sex-specific touch-down polymerase chain reaction (Td-PCR) amplification products. Using pooled DNA from male and female geno...

This exploratory study determined the epidemiological characteristics of Staphylococcus epidermidis from near touch sites and blood cultures in one Intensive Care Unit (ICU) between July and October 2009 in a large teaching hospital in Brazil. Five different touch sites around the environment of two different patients were sampled over four days and 24 blood cultures from 24 patients were obtai...

Background: Quantitative fluorescence-polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) is an inexpensive and accurate method for the prenatal diagnosis of aneuploidies that applies short tandem repeats (STRs) as a chromosome-specific marker. Despite its apparent advantages, QF-PCR is not applicable in all cases due to the presence of uninformative STRs. This study was carried out to investigate the efficienc...