Open AccessDevelopment of DNA probes for early diagnosis and epidemiological study of cryptococcosis in AIDS patients
Author(s) -
Itzhack Polacheck,
G. A. LEBENS,
James Hicks
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of clinical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.349
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1070-633X
pISSN - 0095-1137
DOI - 10.1128/jcm.30.4.925-930.1992
Subject(s) - cryptococcus neoformans , cryptococcosis , biology , epidemiology , microbiology and biotechnology , cryptococcus , sida , fungi imperfecti , virology , restriction enzyme , hybridization probe , mycosis , isolation (microbiology) , molecular epidemiology , viral disease , aids related opportunistic infections , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , immunology , dna , medicine , genetics , pathology , genotype , gene
We report the isolation of middle-repetitive DNA sequences from Cryptococcus neoformans that are species and variety specific. These probes were used for assessing strain relatedness among cryptococcal isolates from patients with and without AIDS who were from Zaire and the United States. Five distinct hybridization patterns were observed for the 60 isolates examined, regardless of the restriction enzyme used for digestion. The most common pattern among the isolates from the patients without AIDS was also the most common among the isolates from the patients with AIDS who were from the United States and was the only pattern observed for all isolates tested from patients with AIDS who were from Zaire. On the basis of the high specificity and sensitivity of the signals observed by hybridization, we suggest that these sequences provide a means for both biotyping and early diagnosis of C. neoformans.
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