Diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis using molecular biology technology

Objective:To present an integrated molecular biology dedicated system for tuberculosis diagnosis.Methods:One hundred and five sputum specimens from patients strongly suspected by clinical parameters of tuberculosis were studied by Ziehl-Neelsen staining, by cultivation on solid medium and by a balanced heminested fluorometricPCR system (OrangeG3TB) that could preserve worker safety and produce a rather pure material free of potential inhibitors. DNA amplification was performed in a low cost tuberculosis termocycler-fluorometer. Produced double stranded DNA was flurometrically detected. The whole reaction was conducted in one single tube which would not be opened after adding the processed sample in order to minimize the risk of cross contamination with amplicons.Results: The assay was able to detect30 bacillus per sample mL with99.8% interassay variation coefficient.PCR was positive in23 (21.9%) tested samples (21 of them were smear negative). In our study it showed a preliminary sensitivity of 94.5% for sputum and an overall specificity of98.7%.Conclusions:Total run time of the test is4 h with2.5 real working time. AllPCR positive samples are also positive by microbiological culture and clinical criteria. Results show that it could be a very useful tool to increase detection efficiency of tuberculosis disease in low bacilus load samples. Furthermore, its low cost and friendly using make it feasible to run in poor regions.

Una variedad genética de la UDP-glucuronosil transferasa asociada a toxicidad gastrointestinal por irinotecan / A prevalent genetic variety of UDP-glycuronosyl transferase predicts high risk of irinotecan toxicity

Los avances en genética y biología molecular han impulsado la aparición de nuevas áreas de estudio en la medicina, como la farmacogenómica, la cual intenta predecir la respuesta y toxicidad a drogas en función de la variabilidad genética de cada individuo, constituyendo los llamados síndromes fármacogenómicos. La oncología podría beneficiarse debido a la gran toxicidad de sus fármacos. Hay varios loci genéticos que se están analizando por su potencial valor predictivo y hasta ahora sólo tres de ellos demostraron cierto grado de utilidad clínica. En especial, el estudio del número de repeticiones del dinucleótido timina-adenina (TA) en el promotor de la enzima UDP-glucuronosil-transferasa (UGT) mostró ser capaz de predecir neutropenia severa en pacientes expuestos a dosis intermedias y altas de irinotecan. Comunicamos el caso de una paciente con cáncer de pulmón de células pequeñas que padeció toxicidad hematológica y gastrointestinal grave tras haber sido tratada con dosis relativamente bajas (65 mg/m2) de irinotecan, y en quien un análisis del ADN leucocitario mostró la presencia de homocigosis para siete repeticiones de TA. Este caso es un ejemplo de aplicabilidad clínica del test, se discute su utilidad como predictor de toxicidad y la conducta a tomar frente a pacientes con estas características.

The advances in genetics and molecular biology have raised new areas in medicine, such as pharmacogenomics, which tries to predict drug responses and toxicities based on the individual genetic variability, describing the so called: pharmacogenomic syndromes. Oncology would find this development extremely useful because of the severe toxicity of chemotherapy. There are a lot of genetic loci under investigation for their potential in predicting drug toxicity, but only three of them have showed clinical usefulness up to now. In particular, quantification of the number of thymine-adenine (TA) dinucleotics in the promoter region of the UDP-glucuronosyl-transferase 1A1 enzime (TA indel) proved to be capable of predicting severe neutropenia in patients exposed to intermediate or high doses of irinotecan. Herein we report a case of a patient with small cell lung cancer who suffered severe hematological and gastrointestinal toxicity after being treated with relatively low doses (65 mg/m2) of irinotecan and whose leucocyte DNA analysis showed the presence of seven TA repetitions in both alleles. This case is an example of the clinical applicability and the utility of the test as a toxicity predictor. We also discuss the clinical decisions that may be taken with these patients.

A simple and economic slide micro-immunoenzymatic (Micro-SIA) test for epidemiological studies of toxoplasmosis

A slide micro-immunoenzymatic assay (micro-SIA) to detectantibodies to non-particulate Toxoplasma gondii antigens is described. This assay allows the diagnosis of toxoplasmosis infection in about 1 hr. Twenty-four determinations can be performed per slide. Five hundred ng of antigen and 5 or 10 µl drop of each reactive are necessary per well. The clear contrast of colours obtained for negative and positive sera after the test is finished, allows direct discrimination of the results. However, it is possible to quantify the results of the reaction using a minireader. Sera dilution cutoff value, determined as themost frequent titre for the general population, is 1:100. The toxoplasma micro-SIA correlates well with indirect immunofluorescence (IIF), its sensitivity is atleast three times as much as IIF. The test has an intra and inter assay variation coefficient of 5.46 per cent and of 6.24 per cent respectively. Sera obtained at random from argentinian people were analyzed and a 56 per cent of infection was found. The main features of the Toxoplasma micro-SIA are its simplicity, sensitivity, reproducibility, and the virtual absence of background making it very suitable for screening tests

Toxoplasma gondii: a rapid method for the isolation of pure tachyzoites: preliminary characterization of its genome

A rapid and simple technique for the purification of Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites was developed. Highly purified parasites were obtained from the peritoneal exudates of infected mice by means of two consecutive discontinous sucrose gradients run at low speed (10,000xg, 30 min). Parasites obtained by this method conserved its biological activity. Hybridizations tudies with DNA from healthy mice and from purified tachyzoites preparations demonstrated that Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites DNA could be obtained with better than 90 per cents purity. Preliminary studies with DNA endonucleases showed the presence in the tachyzoites genome of highly repetitives sequences