Quantitative PCR for leprosy diagnosis and monitoring in household contacts: A follow-up study, 2011-2018.

Household contacts (HHC) of leprosy patients exhibit high-risk of developing leprosy and contact tracing is helpful for early diagnosis. From 2011 to 2018,2,437 HHC were examined in a clinic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and 16S qPCR was used for diagnosis and monitoring of contacts. Fifty-four HHCs were clinically diagnosed with leprosy at intake.

Quantitative polymerase chain reaction in paucibacillary leprosy diagnosis: A follow-up study.

Objective: The diagnosis of paucibacillary (PB) leprosy cases remains a challenge because of the absence of a confirmatory laboratory method. While quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) has been shown to provide reliable sensitivity and specificity in PB diagnoses, a thorough investigation of its efficacy in clinical practice has not yet been published. The present study evaluated patients with suspected leprosy skin lesions by using qPCR to identify PB individuals in the Leprosy Outpatient clinic at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ser49Gly polymorphism in the β-adrenergic receptor 1 gene in a population sample from Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, stratified by self-identified skin color and genetic ancestry.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) have the highest worldwide mortality rate of any type of disease. In recent years, genetic research regarding CVD has been conducted using association studies, in which the presence of a genetic polymorphism associated with a specific cell signaling pathway in a lower or in a higher frequency among patients may be interpreted as a possible causal factor. Genetic polymorphisms that occur in the β-adrenergic receptor 1 (β-ADR1) can result in significant changes in its function that may result in physiopathologies.

Analysis of genetic ancestry in the admixed Brazilian population from Rio de Janeiro using 46 autosomal ancestry-informative indel markers.

The Brazilian population is highly heterogeneous as a result of five centuries of inter-ethnic mating between native Amerindians, European colonizers and Africans arrived during slavery. This study aimed to assess the proportions of inter-ethnic admixture in the Brazilian population of Rio de Janeiro using autosomal Ancestry-Informative Markers (AIMs). The autosomal data were also compared to the results expected from uniparental genetic markers.