Surveillance of enteropathogenic bacteria, protozoa and helminths in travellers returning from the tropics.

Diarrhoea is a frequent symptom associated with travelling to tropical regions, but the cause is often not found. Epidemiology was assessed including up-to-date real-time PCR approaches.We analysed datasets of 528 patients who presented at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany, between 2006 and 2010 for screening purposes or because of diarrhoea.

Microbiological laboratory diagnostics of neglected zoonotic diseases (NZDs).

This review reports on laboratory diagnostic approaches for selected, highly pathogenic neglected zoonotic diseases, i.e. anthrax, bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, echinococcosis, leishmaniasis, rabies, Taenia solium-associated diseases (neuro-/cysticercosis & taeniasis) and trypanosomiasis.

16S rRNA Gene Sequence-Based Identification of Bacteria in Automatically Incubated Blood Culture Materials from Tropical Sub-Saharan Africa.

Background: The quality of microbiological diagnostic procedures depends on pre-analytic conditions. We compared the results of 16S rRNA gene PCR and sequencing from automatically incubated blood culture materials from tropical Ghana with the results of cultural growth after automated incubation.

Methods: Real-time 16S rRNA gene PCR and subsequent sequencing were applied to 1500 retained blood culture samples of Ghanaian patients admitted to a hospital with an unknown febrile illness after enrichment by automated culture.

Detection of tropical fungi in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue: still an indication for microscopy in times of sequence-based diagnosis?

Introduction: The aim of the study was the evaluation of panfungal PCR protocols with subsequent sequence analysis for the diagnostic identification of invasive mycoses in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples with rare tropical mycoses.

Materials And Methods: Five different previously described panfungal PCR/sequencing protocols targeting 18S and 28S ribosomal RNA gene fragments as well as internal transcribed spacer 1 and 2 fragments were evaluated with a collection of 17 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples of patients with rare and/or tropical invasive mycoses, comprising chromoblastomycosis, coccidioidomycosis, cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis, mucormycosis, mycetoma/maduromycosis, and rhinosporidiosis, in a proof-of-principle analysis.

Results: The primers of the panfungal PCRs readily and predominantly reacted with contaminating environmental fungi that had deposited on the paraffin blocks.

rpsU-based discrimination within the genus Burkholderia.

Sequencing of the gene rpsU reliably delineates saprophytic Burkholderia (B.) thailandensis from highly pathogenic B. mallei and B.