ABO Blood Group Genotyping by Real-time PCR in Kazakh Population.

Introduction: ABO blood group genotyping is a new technology in hematology that helps prevent adverse transfusion reactions in patients. Identification of antigens on the surface of red blood cells is based on serology; however, genotyping employs a different strategy and is aimed directly at genes that determine the surface proteins. ABO blood group genotyping by real-time PCR has several crucial advantages over other PCR-based techniques, such as high rapidity and reliability of analysis.

Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains circulating in the penitentiary system of Kazakhstan.

A total of 60 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates collected from patients in prisons in Kazakhstan and 125 from the civilian sector were examined using mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units-variable number of tandem repeat analysis in 2012. The proportion of tuberculosis strains with unique genotypes isolated from the civilian patients was 50.4%, while that in the prison patients was 31.