scholarly journals Molecular Fingerprints to IdentifyCandidaSpecies

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Spampinato ◽  
Darío Leonardi

A wide range of molecular techniques have been developed for genotypingCandidaspecies. Among them, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and microsatellite length polymorphisms (MLP) analysis have recently emerged. MLST relies on DNA sequences of internal regions of various independent housekeeping genes, while MLP identifies microsatellite instability. Both methods generate unambiguous and highly reproducible data. Here, we review the results achieved by using these two techniques and also provide a brief overview of a new method based on high-resolution DNA melting (HRM). This method identifies sequence differences by subtle deviations in sample melting profiles in the presence of saturating fluorescent DNA binding dyes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 117793222110592
Author(s):  
Enzo Guerrero-Araya ◽  
Marina Muñoz ◽  
César Rodríguez ◽  
Daniel Paredes-Sabja

Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) is a precise microbial typing approach at the intra-species level for epidemiologic and evolutionary purposes. It operates by assigning a sequence type (ST) identifier to each specimen, based on a combination of alleles of multiple housekeeping genes included in a defined scheme. The use of MLST has multiplied due to the availability of large numbers of genomic sequences and epidemiologic data in public repositories. However, data processing speed has become problematic due to the massive size of modern datasets. Here, we present FastMLST, a tool that is designed to perform PubMLST searches using BLASTn and a divide-and-conquer approach that processes each genome assembly in parallel. The output offered by FastMLST includes a table with the ST, allelic profile, and clonal complex or clade (when available), detected for a query, as well as a multi-FASTA file or a series of FASTA files with the concatenated or single allele sequences detected, respectively. FastMLST was validated with 91 different species, with a wide range of guanine-cytosine content (%GC), genome sizes, and fragmentation levels, and a speed test was performed on 3 datasets with varying genome sizes. Compared with other tools such as mlst, CGE/MLST, MLSTar, and PubMLST, FastMLST takes advantage of multiple processors to simultaneously type up to 28 000 genomes in less than 10 minutes, reducing processing times by at least 3-fold with 100% concordance to PubMLST, if contaminated genomes are excluded from the analysis. The source code, installation instructions, and documentation of FastMLST are available at https://github.com/EnzoAndree/FastMLST


Author(s):  
T. Miyokawa ◽  
S. Norioka ◽  
S. Goto

Field emission SEMs (FE-SEMs) are becoming popular due to their high resolution needs. In the field of semiconductor product, it is demanded to use the low accelerating voltage FE-SEM to avoid the electron irradiation damage and the electron charging up on samples. However the accelerating voltage of usual SEM with FE-gun is limited until 1 kV, which is not enough small for the present demands, because the virtual source goes far from the tip in lower accelerating voltages. This virtual source position depends on the shape of the electrostatic lens. So, we investigated several types of electrostatic lenses to be applicable to the lower accelerating voltage. In the result, it is found a field emission gun with a conical anode is effectively applied for a wide range of low accelerating voltages.A field emission gun usually consists of a field emission tip (cold cathode) and the Butler type electrostatic lens.


Author(s):  
O.L. Krivanek ◽  
M.L. Leber

Three-fold astigmatism resembles regular astigmatism, but it has 3-fold rather than 2-fold symmetry. Its contribution to the aberration function χ(q) can be written as:where A3 is the coefficient of 3-fold astigmatism, λ is the electron wavelength, q is the spatial frequency, ϕ the azimuthal angle (ϕ = tan-1 (qy/qx)), and ϕ3 the direction of the astigmatism.Three-fold astigmatism is responsible for the “star of Mercedes” aberration figure that one obtains from intermediate lenses once their two-fold astigmatism has been corrected. Its effects have been observed when the beam is tilted in a hollow cone over a wide range of angles, and there is evidence for it in high resolution images of a small probe obtained in a field emission gun TEM/STEM instrument. It was also expected to be a major aberration in sextupole-based Cs correctors, and ways were being developed for dealing with it on Cs-corrected STEMs.


Author(s):  
P.E. Russell ◽  
I.H. Musselman

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has evolved rapidly in the past few years. Major developments have occurred in instrumentation, theory, and in a wide range of applications. In this paper, an overview of the application of STM and related techniques to polymers will be given, followed by a discussion of current research issues and prospects for future developments. The application of STM to polymers can be conveniently divided into the following subject areas: atomic scale imaging of uncoated polymer structures; topographic imaging and metrology of man-made polymer structures; and modification of polymer structures. Since many polymers are poor electrical conductors and hence unsuitable for use as a tunneling electrode, the related atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique which is capable of imaging both conductors and insulators has also been applied to polymers.The STM is well known for its high resolution capabilities in the x, y and z axes (Å in x andy and sub-Å in z). In addition to high resolution capabilities, the STM technique provides true three dimensional information in the constant current mode. In this mode, the STM tip is held at a fixed tunneling current (and a fixed bias voltage) and hence a fixed height above the sample surface while scanning across the sample surface.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 182
Author(s):  
Anna Wyrobisz-Papiewska ◽  
Jerzy Kowal ◽  
Elżbieta Łopieńska-Biernat ◽  
Paweł Nosal ◽  
Iwona Polak ◽  
...  

Ostertagia leptospicularis Assadov, 1953 was formally described in roe deer Capreolus capreolus and has been reported in a wide range of ruminants, including other Cervidae, as well as Bovidae. Nematode specimens derived from various host species exhibit morphological similarity; however, some differences can be observed. It is unclear if this is due to the differential reaction of one nematode species in different host species (i.e., host-induced changes) or because of distinct nematode species in these hosts (i.e., species complex). This paper focuses on specimens resembling O. leptospicularis f. leptospicularis and its closely related species (Ostertagia ostertagi f. ostertagi) collected from various hosts. Morphometric and molecular techniques were applied to assess host-induced changes in nematode morphology and to clarify its systematic classification. There was an overall effect of host species on measurements of nematodes resembling O. leptospicularis (both males and females), but the distinctiveness of the specimens from cattle Bos taurus were highlighted. The results obtained may suggest that the specimens of O. leptospicularis from cattle in Germany and cervids in central Europe belong to different strains. Furthermore, nematodes from the cervid strain appear to circulate within particular host species, which can be seen in the stated morphological variations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Cruz ◽  
Klas Hjort

AbstractThe ability to focus, separate and concentrate specific targets in a fluid is essential for the analysis of complex samples such as biological fluids, where a myriad of different particles may be present. Inertial focusing is a very promising technology for such tasks, and specially a recently presented variant, inertial focusing in High Aspect Ratio Curved systems (HARC systems), where the systems are easily engineered and focus the targets together in a stable position over a wide range of particle sizes and flow rates. However, although convenient for laser interrogation and concentration, by focusing all particles together, HARC systems lose an essential feature of inertial focusing: the possibility of particle separation by size. Within this work, we report that HARC systems not only do have the capacity to separate particles but can do so with extremely high resolution, which we demonstrate for particles with a size difference down to 80 nm. In addition to the concept for particle separation, a model considering the main flow, the secondary flow and a simplified expression for the lift force in HARC microchannels was developed and proven accurate for the prediction of the performance of the systems. The concept was also demonstrated experimentally with three different sub-micron particles (0.79, 0.92 and 1.0 µm in diameter) in silicon-glass microchannels, where the resolution in the separation could be modulated by the radius of the channel. With the capacity to focus sub-micron particles and to separate them with high resolution, we believe that inertial focusing in HARC systems is a technology with the potential to facilitate the analysis of complex fluid samples containing bioparticles like bacteria, viruses or eukaryotic organelles.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua-Tian Tu ◽  
An-Qing Jiang ◽  
Jian-Ke Chen ◽  
Wei-Jie Lu ◽  
Kai-Yan Zang ◽  
...  

AbstractUnlike the single grating Czerny–Turner configuration spectrometers, a super-high spectral resolution optical spectrometer with zero coma aberration is first experimentally demonstrated by using a compound integrated diffraction grating module consisting of 44 high dispersion sub-gratings and a two-dimensional backside-illuminated charge-coupled device array photodetector. The demonstrated super-high resolution spectrometer gives 0.005 nm (5 pm) spectral resolution in ultra-violet range and 0.01 nm spectral resolution in the visible range, as well as a uniform efficiency of diffraction in a broad 200 nm to 1000 nm wavelength region. Our new zero-off-axis spectrometer configuration has the unique merit that enables it to be used for a wide range of spectral sensing and measurement applications.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 785
Author(s):  
Chow Shing Shin ◽  
Yu Chia Chang

Lattice structures are superior to stochastic foams in mechanical properties and are finding increasing applications. Their properties can be tailored in a wide range through adjusting the design and dimensions of the unit cell, changing the constituent materials as well as forming into hierarchical structures. In order to achieve more levels of hierarchy, the dimensions of the fundamental lattice have to be small enough. Although lattice size of several microns can be fabricated using the two-photon polymerization technique, sophisticated and costly equipment is required. To balance cost and performance, a low-cost high resolution micro-stereolithographic system has been developed in this work based on a commercial digital light processing (DLP) projector. Unit cell lengths as small as 100 μm have been successfully fabricated. Decreasing the unit cell size from 150 to 100 μm increased the compressive stiffness by 26%. Different pretreatments to facilitate the electroless plating of nickel on the lattice structure have been attempted. A pretreatment of dip coating in a graphene suspension is the most successful and increased the strength and stiffness by 5.3 and 3.6 times, respectively. Even a very light and incomplete nickel plating in the interior has increase the structural stiffness and strength by more than twofold.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yance Feng ◽  
Lei M. Li

Abstract Background Normalization of RNA-seq data aims at identifying biological expression differentiation between samples by removing the effects of unwanted confounding factors. Explicitly or implicitly, the justification of normalization requires a set of housekeeping genes. However, the existence of housekeeping genes common for a very large collection of samples, especially under a wide range of conditions, is questionable. Results We propose to carry out pairwise normalization with respect to multiple references, selected from representative samples. Then the pairwise intermediates are integrated based on a linear model that adjusts the reference effects. Motivated by the notion of housekeeping genes and their statistical counterparts, we adopt the robust least trimmed squares regression in pairwise normalization. The proposed method (MUREN) is compared with other existing tools on some standard data sets. The goodness of normalization emphasizes on preserving possible asymmetric differentiation, whose biological significance is exemplified by a single cell data of cell cycle. MUREN is implemented as an R package. The code under license GPL-3 is available on the github platform: github.com/hippo-yf/MUREN and on the conda platform: anaconda.org/hippo-yf/r-muren. Conclusions MUREN performs the RNA-seq normalization using a two-step statistical regression induced from a general principle. We propose that the densities of pairwise differentiations are used to evaluate the goodness of normalization. MUREN adjusts the mode of differentiation toward zero while preserving the skewness due to biological asymmetric differentiation. Moreover, by robustly integrating pre-normalized counts with respect to multiple references, MUREN is immune to individual outlier samples.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Mayoral ◽  
Ignacio Díaz-Martínez ◽  
Jéremy Duveau ◽  
Ana Santos ◽  
Antonio Rodríguez Ramírez ◽  
...  

AbstractHere, we report the recent discovery of 87 Neandertal footprints on the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula (Doñana shoreline, Spain) located on an upper Pleistocene aeolian littoral setting (about 106 ± 19 kyr). Morphometric comparisons, high resolution digital photogrammetric 3D models and detailed sedimentary analysis have been provided to characterized the footprints and the palaeoenvironment. The footprints were impressed in the shoreline of a hypersaline swamped area related to benthic microbial mats, close to the coastline. They have a rounded heel, a longitudinal arch, relatively short toes, and adducted hallux, and represent the oldest upper Pleistocene record of Neandertal footprints in the world. Among these 87 footprints, 31 are longitudinally complete and measure from 14 to 29 cm. The calculated statures range from 104 to 188 cm, with half of the data between 130 and 150 cm. The wide range of sizes of the footprints suggests the existence of a social group integrated by individuals of different age classes but dominated, however, by non-adult individuals. The footprints, which are outside the flooded area are oriented perpendicular to the shoreline. These 87 footprints reinforce the ecological scenario of Neandertal groups established in coastal areas.


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