Standardisation and evaluation of DNA-lanthanide fluorescence spectroscopy for determining rifampicin resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates.

Setting: Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai.

Objective: To rapidly identify multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis using a novel method.

Design: A new assay, based on DNA-lanthanide fluorescence, was standardised and evaluated using 93 each of coded rifampicin-resistant and rifampicin-sensitive M.

Environmental radiation as the conditioning factor for the survival of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Whether natural radiation can be a conditioning factor for the growth and survival of a living organism was investigated using diploid yeast S. cerevisiae D7. Yeast cells were conditioned by growing them continuously for at least 100 generation in 3 different radiation background such as i) ambient radiation (1.

Comet assay to assess the non-target effect of neutron-radiation in human peripheral blood.

The non-target effect of neutron-irradiation was assessed in unirradiated human peripheral blood lymphocytes using an alkaline comet assay. The isolated cells were incubated with an autologous plasma for 1 h at 37 degrees C before performing the assay. The cells exhibited a significant increase in the tailmoment when the irradiated blood (2 Gy, 570 keV neutron) was the source of plasma.

Neutron-induced adaptive response studied in go human lymphocytes using the comet assay.

This study demonstrates that cells adapted to ionizing radiation developed reduced initial DNA damage when compared to non-adapted cells. The results were obtained by subjecting in vitro irradiated whole blood from 10 healthy volunteers (including 2 A-bomb survivors carrying 1.5-2 Gy in vivo exposure) in an unstimulated condition (G0) using the comet assay.

Comet assay to sense neutron 'fingerprint'.

The suitability of comet assay to identify DNA damage induced by neutrons of varying energy was tested. For this purpose, monoenergetic neutrons from Hiroshima University Radiobiological Research Accelerator (HIRRAC) were used to induce DNA damage in irradiated human peripheral blood lymphocytes. The level of damage was computed as tail moment for different doses (0.