Behavioral and genetic correlates of heterogeneity in learning performance in individual honeybees, Apis mellifera.

Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with some bees performing very well and others at low rates. Here we investigated this behavioral heterogeneity and asked whether it was associated with particular gene expression patterns in the bee's brain. Bees were individually conditioned using a sequential conditioning protocol involving several phases of olfactory learning and retention tests.

In-vivo egfp expression in the honeybee Apis mellifera induced by electroporation and viral expression vector.

In this study we describe egfp expression induced by two techniques: in vivo electroporation and viral transduction in several cell types of the adult honeybee brain. Non-neuronal and neuronal cell types were identified and the expression persisted at least during three days. Kenyon cells, optic lobe neurons and protocerebral lobe neurons were electroporated.

Low Sensitivity of Real Time PCRs Targeting Retrotransposon Sequences for the Detection of Complex DNA in Human Serum.

While hybridization probe-based real-time PCR assays targeting highly repetitive multi-copy genome sequences for the diagnosis of complex or complex from human serum are well established, reports on the evaluation of respective assays for the identification of complex DNA in human serum are scarce. Here, we assessed the potential use of the retrotransposon sequences and from , and for the diagnosis of Asian infections. Based on available sequences and newly provided and sequences, hybridization probe-based real-time PCRs targeting and of the complex were designed both as consensus primer assays as well as multi-primer assays for the coverage of multiple variants of the target sequences.

Comparison of Two Real-Time PCR Assays Targeting Ribosomal Sequences for the Identification of in Human Stool Samples.

is a coccidian parasite associated with acute or chronic gastroenteritis in immunocompromised patients. Dissatisfactory sensitivity of microscopy as the diagnostic standard approach has been described. Here, we comparatively evaluated two real-time PCRs targeting ribosomal RNA gene sequences of in stool in a test comparison without a reference standard applying latent class analysis.

Differing Effects of Standard and Harsh Nucleic Acid Extraction Procedures on Diagnostic Helminth Real-Time PCRs Applied to Human Stool Samples.

This study aimed to assess standard and harsher nucleic acid extraction schemes for diagnostic helminth real-time PCR approaches from stool samples. A standard procedure for nucleic acid extraction from stool and a procedure including bead-beating as well as proteinase K digestion were compared with group-, genus-, and species-specific real-time PCR assays targeting helminths and nonhelminth pathogens in human stool samples. From 25 different in-house and commercial helminth real-time PCR assays applied to 77 stool samples comprising 67 historic samples and 10 external quality assessment scheme samples positively tested for helminths, higher numbers of positive test results were observed after bead-beating-based nucleic acid extraction for 5/25 (20%) real-time PCR assays irrespective of specificity issues.