Rapid detection of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) infection is very important for control and prevention of nosocomial spread of these bacteria. A multiplex PCR method for rapid screening of VRE has recently been developed. We performed a prospective study of VRE screening tests to compare the performance of PCR to that of a chromogenic agar-based culture method. From January to Decembe...

objective(s):sea cucumber derived bioactive compound is considered efficient in treatment of bone disorders. this study was performed   to evaluate the effect of this extract on differentiation of rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (rbmmsc) into osteogenic lineage. materials and methods: isolated rbmmsc were grown in dmem supplemented with 10% fbs. the cells were exposed to different concen...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether manually plucked hairs might serve as an alternative sample for a quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) testing. Twenty three, 1~3 week old, non-bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) vaccinated calves, found to be positive for BVDV by immunohistochemical staining, were selected and hairs were manually plucked from the ear. qRT...

A real-time PCR assay previously developed for use on the Roche LightCycler platform was investigated as an alternative to culture for the direct detection of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in clinical specimens. PCR primers and fluorescence resonance energy transfer hybridization probes specific for the vanA and vanB genes were combined in a multiplex real-time PCR assay performed dire...

An amplification polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for the direct detection of Chlamydia trachomatis in urethral and endocervical swab specimens from symptomatic and asymptomatic women and men were compared to standard culture technique. During 6 months, 300 endocervical swab specimens from 205 asymptomatic women (64.4%) and 95 symptomatic women (31.6%), and 187 urethral swab specime...

The sensitivities of three methods of detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae by a 16S rDNA PCR were compared by using a serial dilution of M. pneumoniae. These methods consisted of a PCR performed directly on cells after a proteinase K pretreatment (direct PCR), a PCR after purification of nucleic acids (DNA-PCR), and a PCR with rRNA sequences as the target after reverse transcription. The direct P...

BACKGROUND Exon deletions of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene account for most of the alterations found in DMD and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD). This study was to evaluate the usefulness of dual priming oligonucleotide multiplex PCR (DPO PCR) in detection of exon deletions of DMD gene. METHODS Thirty-seven DMD or BMD patients who had known exon deletions detected by conventional mult...