Background: Respiratory viral infections pose a major global health burden, and molecular diagnostics such as Real-Time RT-PCR have revealed frequent co-infections. However, precise quantification of viral RNA remains challenging. Digital PCR (dPCR)...
A principal consumer demand is a guarantee of the safety and quality of food. The presence of foodborne pathogens and their potential hazard, the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food production, and the correct labelling in foods suit...
Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has reshaped bacterial infectious disease diagnostics, yet important interpretive gaps remain regarding the relationship among molecular detection, cycle threshold (Ct) values, microbial viability, culture fi...
The emergence of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has highlighted the need for rapid, accurate, and point-of-care diagnostic testing. Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) devices offer the possibility to run such tests at a low cost, while at the same time permitti...
Background/Objectives: Emerging infectious diseases pose significant global threats due to their rapid transmission, limited therapeutic options, and profound socioeconomic impact. Conventional diagnostic techniques that rely on sequencing and polyme...
Since the beginning of 2020, the betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is causing a global pandemic of an acute respiratory disease termed COVID-19. The diagnostics of the novel disease is primarily based on direct virus detection by RT-PCR; however, the availa...
Background: Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia is increasingly diagnosed with highly sensitive PCR diagnostics in immunocompromised, HIV-negative individuals. We assessed the performance of our in-house quantitative PCR with the aim to optimise interpr...
The application of modern PCR approaches for the diagnosis of bacterial gastrointestinal pathogens is on the rise due to their rapidly available results combined with high sensitivity. While multiple studies describe the ongoing implementation of thi...
Sepsis is a life-threatening syndrome triggered by infection and accompanied by high mortality, with antimicrobial resistances (AMRs) further escalating clinical challenges. The rapid and reliable detection of causative pathogens and AMRs are key fac...
Candidemia poses a major threat to ICU patients and is routinely diagnosed by blood culture, which is known for its low sensitivity and long turnaround times. We compared the performance of a novel, Candida-specific multiplex real-time PCR assay (Fun...
Accurate detection of SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the global pandemic of COVID-19, is essential for disease surveillance and control. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) is considered the reference standard test for the diagnosis of...
Background: Coccidioidomycosis is an endemic fungal infection in the southwestern United States that can present as solitary lung nodules, mimicking malignancy on imaging. Molecular testing, such as PCR, offers rapid diagnosis but its performance in...
Recently, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detected in several animal species. After transmission to animals, the virus accumulates mutations in its genome as adaptation to the new animal host progresses. Therefore...
Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a major cause of neonatal morbidity, particularly sensorineural hearing loss, yet its early detection remains challenging. While urinary PCR is the current diagnostic gold standard, its implementation in neonatal s...
Digital polymerase chain reaction (dPCR) has emerged as a groundbreaking technology in molecular biology and diagnostics, offering exceptional precision and sensitivity in nucleic acid detection and quantification. This review highlights the core pri...
In this review, we discuss the development pipeline for transcriptional biomarkers in molecular diagnostics and stress the importance of a reliable gene transcript quantification strategy. Hence, a further focus is put on the MIQE guidelines and how...
Early confirmation of leptospirosis is essential for prompt antimicrobial treatment, and PCR-based diagnosis has been reported as a highly sensitive method during the acute phase in the first week since the symptom’s onset. We evaluated the dia...
Onychomycosis (OM) is a widespread infection requiring prolonged treatment with potential side effects. Diagnostic certainty is therefore essential before initiating antifungal therapy. Molecular biology has already shown benefits in reducing the tim...
Conjunctival swabs (CS) are the most promising non-invasive samples for the diagnosis and the regular screening of Leishmania infantum infection in dogs although knowledge on their diagnostic performance is still inconclusive. This study evaluates CS...
Accurate and timely identification of enteric pathogens is crucial for guiding treatment in hospitalized patients with acute diarrhea. Conventional stool testing often lacks sensitivity, whereas multiplex PCR diagnostics offer rapid, comprehensive pa...
The ability of Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) to survive in bovine milk has emerged as a serious public health concern. The first objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic utility of IS1081-targeted real-time PCR for the detection of M. ...
Diagnostics of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using molecular techniques from the collected respiratory swab specimens requires well-equipped laboratory and qualified personnel, also it needs several hours of waiting for results and is expen...
Candida auris is an opportunistic pathogenic yeast that emerged worldwide during the past decade. This fungal pathogen poses a significant public health threat due to common multidrug resistance (MDR), alarming hospital outbreaks, and frequent miside...
(1) Background: The comparative performance of various diagnostic methods for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the comparison of the 3 index test performances of r...
Bloodstream infections (BSIs) are associated with substantial morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Conventional diagnostics are limited by delayed results, often postponing appropriate antimicrobial therapy. This review aimed to evaluate the c...
(1) Background: The entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae sensu lato forms a species complex, comprising a tight cluster made up of four species, namely M. anisopliae sensu stricto, M. pinghaense, M. robertsii and M. brunneum. Unambiguous sp...
Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis (Cmm) and Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs) are important bacterial pathogens of tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), are included in A2 list in the EPPO (European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization)...
Potential etiological relevance for gastroenteric disorders including diarrhea has been assigned to Arcobacter butzleri. However, standard routine diagnostic algorithms for stool samples of patients with diarrhea are rarely adapted to the detection o...
Background: Reverse transcription is a key step in emerging RNA diagnostics, but reverse transcriptase (RT) enzymes often fail in the presence of inhibitors carried over from clinical samples or introduced during RNA extraction. Here, we dissect the...
The banana mild mosaic virus (BanMMV) (Betaflexiviridae, Quinvirinae, unassigned species) is a filamentous virus that infects Musa spp. and has a very wide geographical distribution. The current BanMMV indexing process for an accession requires the t...
(1) Background: Potentially arthropod-pathogenic and plant-associated Metarhizium fungi are of high interest for basic research, biological pest control and plant growth promotion. Unambiguous species delineation enabling the taxonomic assignment of...
The advent of rapid molecular microbiology testing has revolutionized infectious disease diagnostics and is now impacting pneumonia diagnosis and management. Molecular platforms offer highly multiplexed assays for diverse viral and bacterial detectio...
The genus Basidiobolus, known since 1886, is primarily associated with reptiles and amphibians. Although globally distributed, rare infections caused by members of this genus mainly occur in tropical and subtropical regions. Morphological and physiol...
Identification of aberrant DNA methylation is a promising tool in prostate cancer (PCa) diagnosis and treatment. In this study, we evaluated a two-step method named optimised bias-based preamplification followed by digital PCR (OBBPA-dPCR). The metho...
Paramecium bursaria is a single-celled model organism for studying endosymbiosis among ciliates and green algae. Most strains of P. bursaria bear either Chlorella variabilis or Micractinium conductrix as endosymbionts. Both algal genera are unicellul...
14 February 2023
This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of the thick blood smear (TBS) versus quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) for the diagnosis of malaria associated with pregnancy (MAP) caused by P. falciparum or P. vivax in Colombia in its gestatio...
Rapid detection and quantification of epidemiologically important Salmonella enterica serovars are critical for poultry surveillance, food safety monitoring, and risk-based intervention strategies. This study performed comprehensive analytical valida...
Syndromic multiplex-PCR panels deliver rapid, comprehensive detection of pathogens and resistance determinants in acute infections, but their unrestricted use can generate a high proportion of negative results with substantial economic and stewardshi...
The diagnosis of swine influenza A virus (swIAV) has to involve laboratory detection, as the clinical signs are not pathognomonic. Nasal swabs (NSs) have been the preferred sample material for swIAV PCR diagnostics, but oral fluid (OF) is a convenien...
Metagenomic approaches used for virus diagnostics allow for rapid and accurate detection of all viral pathogens in the plants. In order to investigate the occurrence of viruses and virus-like organisms infecting grapevine from the Ampelographic colle...
Real-time molecular techniques have become the reference methods for the direct diagnosis of pathogens. The reduction of steps is a key factor in order to decrease the risk of human errors resulting in invalid series and delayed results. We describe...
Currently, a gold standard diagnostic test for Bartonella infection in dogs is lacking. This represents a critical limitation for the development and evaluation of new diagnostic tests, as well as for the diagnosis of, and research on, bartonellosis...
The basic principles of ultrafast plasmonic PCR have been promulgated in the scientific and technological literature for over a decade. Yet, its everyday diagnostic utility remains unvalidated in pre-clinical and clinical settings. Although the impre...
Background and Objectives: The steady spread of dengue virus (DENV) poses a profound public health threat worldwide. Reverse transcription real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT2-PCR) has been increasingly recognized as a reference method for the di...
Bloodstream infections (BSIs) represent a major clinical challenge, particularly in patients with suspected sepsis, where rapid pathogen identification is critical for timely and appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Blood culture (BC) remains the refer...
Early detection of biohazardous bacteria that can be misused as biological weapons is one of the most important measures to prevent the spread and outbreak of biological warfare. For this reason, many instrument platforms need to be introduced into o...
During COVID-19 pandemics, the availability of testing has often been a limiting factor during patient admissions into the hospital. To circumvent this problem, we adapted an existing diagnostic assay, Seegene Allplex SARS-CoV-2, into a point-of-care...
This method comparison demonstrated equivalent analytical and diagnostic performance of IndiMix JOE with intype IC-RNA as an alternative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) chemistry compared to the National Animal Health Laboratory Network...
Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is one of the major diseases affecting small-grain cereals, worldwide spread and responsible for severe yield and quality losses annually. Diagnostic tools, able to track Fusarium species even in the early stages of infecti...
Objective: The clinical diagnosis of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) may result in unnecessary antibiotic treatment due to clinical exams’ low sensitivity and specificity to differentiate viral from bacterial infections and costly diagnosti...
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