Fungal bloodstream infections have been noted as a significant problem in many countries including the United States, with an attributable mortality rate of up to 40%. An early diagnosis to direct appropriate therapy has been shown to be critical to reduce mortality rates. Conventional phenotypic methods for fungal detection take several days, which is often too late to impact outcomes.The current gold standards for Candida species isolation and identification are still conventional culture-based methods, which...
Abstract
Endocrine-active substances can adversely impact the aquatic ecosystems. A special emphasis is laid, among others, on the effects of estrogens and estrogen mimicking compounds. Effect-based screening methods like in vitro bioassays are suitable tools to detect and quantify endocrine activities of known and unknown mixtures. This study describes the validation of the Arxula-Yeast Estrogen Screen (A-YES®) assay, an effect-based method for the detection of the estrogenic potential of water and waste...
Avoiding leaks is essential for accurate measurement of biogas production by batch assays. Here we present a simple method for detecting leaks and correcting results, based on the change in bottle mass during incubation. Three experiments were carried out using pure chemicals, wastewater sludge, and other complex substrates to test and demonstrate the method, and leaks were detected in all three. The frequency and magnitude of leakage was related to headspace pressure and the number of times bottle septa had been...
AbstractArxula adeninivorans-based yeast cell assays for the detection of steroid hormones demonstrated their efficiency for the determination of total hormone activity in a variety of samples using a microtiter plate format. In this study, a preliminary chromatographic separation using thin-layer chromatography plates is introduced in order to allow a rapid identification of the compounds responsible for this hormonal activity. The yeast whole cell assay can then be performed on the plate, producing a detectable...
A new system for monitoring toxicity TOXcontrol® (MicroLAN BV, The Netherlands) has been used to assess the toxicity of a selection of priority or emergent compounds in the laboratory. In this study, inhibition curves and EC50 – Effective Concentration causing 50% inhibition – of selected compounds (including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, surfactants and metals commonly detected in surface or drinking waters) were determined. This new technology is based on the measurement of Vibrio fischeri...
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