In-situ hybridization for the diagnosis and typing of human papillomavirus

The role of nucleic acid amplification and detection in the clinical microbiology laboratory

Clinical microbiology is in the midst of a new era. Methodology that is based on nucleic acid detection has slowly appeared in the diagnostic laboratory, and is revolutionizing our ability to assist physicians in the diagnosis and management of patients suffering from infectious diseases. Much like the introduction of immunoassays built around hybridoma technology in the 1980s, considerable doubt and promise exist hand in hand in the 1990s. Conventional testing that is technically straight forward, informative, and timely will always be a part of clinical microbiology; however, considerable room for improvement exists with organisms/diseases for which laboratory methods are limited. Nucleic acid methodology will have its greatest and long-awaited impact in this arena.

Concepts, principles, and applications of selected molecular biology techniques in clinical biochemistry

The myriad molecular techniques that have been developed and are undergoing refinement have advanced our knowledge of disease processes and made available strategies for detection. While the greatest impact of molecular techniques in the diagnostic laboratory has been in the realm of infectious diseases, techniques such as flow cytometry, FISH, and multiplex-nested PCR followed by direct DNA sequencing are increasing the scope of cancer detection and treatment. The facile typing of HLA-class II genes is a major advance in the matching of donors to recipients of organ transplantation. With advances in genosensor technology and robotic automation, molecular biology techniques are clearly poised to enter the diagnostic clinical biochemistry laboratory for multiple applications.