Scarcely any invention has altered biological science so radically in such a short period as the polyme-rase chain reaction, or PCR. With this technique, minute amounts of DNA can be replicated very rapidly and thereby amplified to such an extent that the DNA becomes easy to detect, study and use for any given purpose. The potential of this technique in medicine has long been known, and ever mo...

Cryptococcus neoformans detection was optimized using PCR technique with the objective of application in the clinical laboratory diagnosis. The amplification area was ITS and 5,6S which encodes the ribosomal RNA (rRNA). A total of 72 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples were used, obtained from cases with and without AIDS. The patients had cryptococcal meningitis (n = 56) and meningitis caused by ...