Background and Aims: Viroids are smallest known plant pathogens and cause several economically significant diseases. Until recently, viroid detection relied mainly on biological tests and indexing. Today various diagnostic techniques such as nucleic acid hybridization, southern blot and reverse transcription coupled with polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) are being used for detection and diagno...

BACKGROUND Congenital deafness is one of the most distressing disorders affecting humanity and exhibits a high incidence worldwide. Most cases of congenital deafness in the Chinese population are caused by defects in a limited number of genes. A convenient and reliable method for detecting common deafness-related gene mutations in the Chinese population is required. METHODS We developed a PCR...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis is one of the most prominent health problems in the world, causing 1.75 million deaths each year. Rapid clinical diagnosis is important in patients who have co-morbidities such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Direct microscopy has low sensitivity and culture takes 3 to 6 weeks 123. Therefore, new tools for TB diagnosis are necessary, especially in health...

background and objective: high-level gentamicin resistance (hlgr: mic ≥ 500 µg/ml) in enterococci is mediated by aminoglycoside modifying enzymes which is mainly encoded by aac(6′)-ie-aph(2′′)-ia gene. the aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency of   aac(6′)-ie-aph(2′′)-ia gene in clinical isolates of enterococcus facium and enterococcus faecalis collected from hospitals in northwest of...

A method incorporating DNA amplification and reverse dot blot hybridization for the detection and identification of mycobacteria to the species level is described. The amplification procedure allowed for the incorporation of digoxigenin-labeled UTP, which was detected by chemiluminescence, removing the need for radioactivity. Using a set of primers and probes from the gene for the 65-kDa heat s...

background and objective: streptococcosis/lactococcosis is the cause of high morbidity and mortality in aquaculture sector and to date a number of species of streptococcus and lactococcus genera including s. iniae, s. agalactiae, s. dysagalactiae, s. parauberis, s. feacalis, l. garvieae and l. lactis have been discriminated as the cause of disease in aquatic animals. despite the use of diagnost...

A modified phage-enzyme link immunosorbent assay (phage-ELISA) and a phage dot-blot assay specific for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and its antibody were developed by using phage display technology. The phageELISA and phage dot-blot assays enabled to detect HBsAg and anti-HBsAg in human sera, and compatible to commercial detection kit. The fusion phages were immobilized onto microtiter p...