Nanoparticles (NPs) are attractive materials owing to their physical and electrochemical properties, which make them extremely useful in diagnostic applications. Photon upconversion is the phenomenon where high-energy photons are emitted upon excitation of low-energy photons. Nucleic acids detection based on upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), which display a high signal-to-noise ratio and no p...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY PCR amplification of the matK barcoding region is often difficult when dealing with multiple angiosperm families. We developed a primer cocktail to amplify this region efficiently across angiosperm diversity. METHODS AND RESULTS We developed 14 matK primers (seven forward, seven reverse) for multiplex PCR, using sequences available in GenBank for 178 taxa belonging to 123...

A panel of 114 blood samples from chronic chagasic patients and nonchagasic patients was screened for Trypanosoma cruzi by xenodiagnostic, serologic, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification tests. Blood samples were preserved in a guanidine-EDTA buffer, and total blood DNA was isolated after chemical nuclease cleavage with 1,10-phenanthroline-copper ion and used as a template for PCR ...