Clinical Molecular and Microbiology

BACKGROUND: Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry accurately identifies both selected bacteria and bacteria in select clinical situations. It has not been evaluated for routine use in the clinic.…

Escherichia coli is the predominant nonpathogenic facultative flora of the human intestine. Some E. coli strains, however, have developed the ability to cause disease of the gastrointestinal, urinary, or central nervous system in even the most…

Few microorganisms are as versatile as Escherichia coli. An important member of the normal intestinal microflora of humans and other mammals, E. coli has also been widely exploited as a cloning host in recombinant DNA technology. But E. coli is more…

In the last decade, as a result of the widespread use of PCR and DNA sequencing, 16S rDNA sequencing has played a pivotal role in the accurate identification of bacterial isolates and the discovery of novel bacteria in clinical microbiology…

Staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) typing, in combination with genotyping of the Staphylococcus aureus chromosome, has become essential for defining methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) clones in epidemiological studies. We have…

DNA sequence represents a single format onto which a broad range of biological phenomena can be projected for high-throughput data collection. Over the past three years, massively parallel DNA sequencing platforms have become widely available,…

The two most commonly used methods to analyze data from real-time, quantitative PCR experiments are absolute quantification and relative quantification. Absolute quantification determines the input copy number, usually by relating the PCR signal to…

Insights into conducting research and the writing of scientific papers are given by Prof. Whitesides in this short essay. The manuscript and its guidelines has been circulated within the Whitesides' research group since 1989.

The association of genetic variation with disease and drug response, and improvements in nucleic acid technologies, have given great optimism for the impact of 'genomic medicine'. However, the formidable size of the diploid human genome,…

Research over the last few years has revealed significant haplotype structure in the human genome. The characterization of these patterns, particularly in the context of medical genetic association studies, is becoming a routine research activity.…

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence and impact on mortality of delays in initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy from initial onset of recurrent/persistent hypotension of septic shock. DESIGN: A retrospective cohort study performed between…

Summary: Antibiotics have always been considered one of the wonder discoveries of the 20th century. This is true, but the real wonder is the rise of antibiotic resistance in hospitals, communities, and the environment concomitant with their use. The…

Gram-negative Enterobacteriaceae with resistance to carbapenem conferred by New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1 (NDM-1) are potentially a major global health problem. We investigated the prevalence of NDM-1, in multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae…

OBJECTIVE: In 1991, the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) convened a "Consensus Conference," the goals of which were to "provide a conceptual and a practical framework to define the systemic…

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis, the major pathway for ligand internalization into eukaryotic cells, is thought to be initiated by the clustering of clathrin and adaptors around receptors destined for internalization. However, here we report that the…

Though biofilms were first described by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the theory describing the biofilm process was not developed until 1978. We now understand that biofilms are universal, occurring in aquatic and industrial water systems as well as a…

Fungal diseases represent an important paradigm in immunology, as they can result from either a lack of recognition by the immune system or overactivation of the inflammatory response. Research in this field is entering an exciting period of…

Reduced duration of antibiotic treatment might contain the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria in intensive care units. We aimed to establish the effectiveness of an algorithm based on the biomarker procalcitonin to reduce antibiotic exposure…

The present investigation was conducted to determine the rate of collagen and non-collagen protein synthesis by rat lung under in vitro conditions. The rate of synthesis of non-collagen protein was greater than the rate of collagen synthesis in…

Real-time PCR has revolutionized the way clinical microbiology laboratories diagnose many human microbial infections. This testing method combines PCR chemistry with fluorescent probe detection of amplified product in the same reaction vessel. In…