Experimental design approach in recombinant protein expression: determining medium composition and induction conditions for expression of pneumolysin from Streptococcus pneumoniae in Escherichia coli and preliminary purification process.

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) causes several serious diseases including pneumonia, septicemia and meningitis. The World Health Organization estimates that streptococcal pneumonia is the cause of approximately 1.

Development of a rapid and sensitive latex agglutination-based method for detection of group A rotavirus.

Considering the background of morbidity and mortality caused by human rotavirus, detection methods that use rotavirus group antigen (VP6) in either enzyme immunoassay (EIA) or latex agglutination test (LAT) has been employed routinely in clinical diagnostic and epidemiological studies. In order to develop a rapid and sensitive rotavirus group A LAT, part of segment 6 corresponding to conserved N-terminal portion of the VP6 (1-245 aa) was cloned in Escherichia coli expression pGEX vector (glutathione S-transferase-GST gene fusion system) that has been modified previously containing a histidine tail at C-terminus. The immunological propriety of the recombinant VP6 having a total molecular weight of 52 kDa was evaluated by Western blot and by the ability of inducing anti-recombinant VP6 polyclonal antibodies in rabbit.