Blood samples from 97 suspected dengue and chikungunya cases and 10 healthy controls were subjected to dengue and chikungunya conventional RT-PCR and DCmRT-PCR. Thirty-one of 97 samples were positive for dengue or chikungunya viral RNA by RT-PCR and DCmRT-PCR with 100% concordance. DCmRT-PCR products were

cycle sequenced. Seven dengue virus strains were clustered within genotype III of DENV-3 and 4 within genotype III of DENV-1, whereas chikungunya sequences were clustered within the Central/East African genotype. DCmRT-PCR was found to be a potential rapid test for simultaneous detection of dengue and CHIKV in clinical samples along with dengue serotyping. (C) 2011 3-MA inhibitor Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.”
“Lentiviral vectors are an important tool for gene delivery in vivo and in vitro. The success of gene transfer approaches relies on high and stable levels of gene expression. To this end, several molecular strategies have been employed to manipulate these vectors

towards improving gene expression in the targeted animal cells. Low gene expression can be accepted CAL-101 due to the weak transcription from the majority of available mammalian promoters; however, this obstacle can be in part overcome by the insertion of cis-acting elements that enhance gene expression in various expression contexts. In this work, we created different lentiviral vectors in which selleck chemicals several posttranscriptional regulatory elements, namely the Woodchuck hepatitis posttranscriptional regulatory element (WPRE) and different specialized poly(A) termination sequences (BGH and SV40) were used to develop vectors leading to improved transgene expression. These vectors combine the advantages of restriction enzyme/ligation-independent cloning eliminating the instability and recombinogenic problems occurring from

traditional cloning methods in lentiviral expression vectors and were tested by expressing GFP and the firefly Luciferase reporter gene from different cellular promoters in different cell lines. We show that the promoter activity varies between cell lines and is affected by the lentiviral genomic context. Moreover, we show that the combination of the WPRE element with the BGH poly(A) signal significantly enhances transgene expression. The vectors herein created can be easily modified and adapted without the need for extensive recloning making them a valuable tool for viral vector development.”
“The genomic content of Enterobacter sakazakii strain ATCC BAA-894 was analyzed for variable-number tandem repeats (VNTRs). In this study we report the development of a multiple-locus VNTR analysis (MLVA) strategy for the subtyping of E. sakazakii. The method is based on a GeneScan analysis of four VNTR loci labeled with multiple fluorescent dyes.