Metabolic Profiling of an Echinostoma caproni Infection in the Mouse for Biomarker Discovery (original) (raw)

Integration of Molecular Methods into Microbiological Diagnostics

Conventional microbiological methods take a long time to complete and sometimes accuracy can be compromised due to varying levels of expertise in the laboratory. Thus, molecular methods are highly needed to accomplish this mission. Apart from the specificity and sensitivity, molecular methods confer accuracy, precision, reproductive among others. This review points out the respective needs for molecular techniques in diagnostic laboratories. Various convincing points were elaborated including; the short turnaround time, minimization of nosocomial infections (transmission within the community and health care system), the economic cost involved in-patient treatment, the sensitivity, reliability and the accurate diagnosis of infectious diseases. The benefits that epidemiological studies draw from molecular techniques need to be implemented in developing nations, the big hopes, some limitations and recommendations of the use molecular methods in microbiological diagnostics are discussed.

Infection Biomarkers Based on Metabolomics

Metabolites

Current infection biomarkers are highly limited since they have low capability to predict infection in the presence of confounding processes such as in non-infectious inflammatory processes, low capability to predict disease outcomes and have limited applications to guide and evaluate therapeutic regimes. Therefore, it is critical to discover and develop new and effective clinical infection biomarkers, especially applicable in patients at risk of developing severe illness and critically ill patients. Ideal biomarkers would effectively help physicians with better patient management, leading to a decrease of severe outcomes, personalize therapies, minimize antibiotics overuse and hospitalization time, and significantly improve patient survival. Metabolomics, by providing a direct insight into the functional metabolic outcome of an organism, presents a highly appealing strategy to discover these biomarkers. The present work reviews the desired main characteristics of infection biomarke...

Urine as a specimen to diagnose infections in twenty-first century: focus on analytical accuracy

Frontiers in immunology, 2012

Urine as a clinical specimen to diagnose infections has been used since ancient times. Many rapid technologies to assist diagnosis of infections are currently in use. Alongside traditional enzyme immunoassays (EIA), new technologies have emerged. Molecular analysis of transrenal DNA to diagnose infections is also a rapidly growing field. The majority of EIAs utilize the detection of excreted sugar compounds of the outer microbial cell-wall shed into the bloodstream and excreted into the urine. This mini-review focuses on current knowledge on rapid urinary antigen detection tests to diagnose most common infections, and highlights their diagnostic utility. The past and the future of urinalysis are also briefly discussed. The analysis of the literature shows that some methods are not quantitative, and analytical sensitivity may remain suboptimal. In addition, the performance criteria and technical documentation of some commercial tests are insufficient. Clinical microbiologists and phy...