Development of a novel approach for the production of dried genomic DNA for use as standards for qualitative PCR testing of food-borne pathogens

As part of a multi-centre European project, FOOD-PCR, the feasibility of a novel approach for production of dried bacterial DNA that could be used as certified reference materials (CRM) was assessed. Selected strains of Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157, Campylobacter jejuni and Yersinia enterocolitica were used to produce genomic DNA (gDNA). These preparations gave support to method development for qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection methods for food-borne pathogens. Purified gDNA was transformed into stable and dry gDNA by using polypropylene vials as carrier and applying a vacuum-drying technique. The gDNA preparations were shown to be sufficiently stable under ambient transport conditions without cooling and proved to have long-term stability at 5°C of at least 22 months. The dried DNA was easily reconstituted by addition of distilled water then gentle shaking. These studies have shown that production of stable and dry bacterial gDNA material is feasible and could help satisfy the increasing need for certified reference DNA positive control samples in the field of PCR testing for detection and verification of food-borne microbial pathogens.

     

Stability and Asymptotic Stability of Functional-Differential Equations

We investigate asymptotic behaviour of solutions of the functional-differentialequation where f and g arelocally Lipschitz functions, C is a continuous matrix and thesmooth lag function obeys 0 (t) t for t 0. We transformthe equation into a delay equation with an infinity of delaysand use a theorem of Söderlind to derive sufficient conditionsfor stability and for asymptotic stability in the case lim_t (t) = . The situation is qualitatively different when lim_t (t) = * < and we outline stability conditions for thatcase by employing direct techniques.     

Conformational Properties of the Phosphate Rings of Neutral Phosphoramidate Derivatives of Ribo- and 2′-Deoxyribonucleoside Cyclic 3′,5′-Monophosphates

Abstract

An investigation of the effects of changing the nature of X, nitrogen base (B), and amino substituent (R₂N) on the equilibrium 1?2 was carried out.

The influence of the above structural changes on the time-averaged coupling constants J_AP and J_BP, determined at 300 MHz, were used to follow changes in K_eq. With constant R₂N, small effects from variation of X and B were found. A large range in K_eq arose from changes in the steric size of R₂N. These results will be related to the question of the ease of chair to twist interconversion of the phosphate ring essential to the biological activities of the naturally occurring diesters, cAMP and cGMP.     

The Number of Edge Colorings with no Monochromatic Cliques

Let F(n,r,k) denote the maximum possible number of distinctedge-colorings of a simple graph on n vertices with r colorswhich contain no monochromatic copy of K_k. It is shown thatfor every fixed k and all n>n₀(k), and , where t_k–1(n)is the maximum possible number of edges of a graph on n verticeswith no K_k (determined by Turán's theorem). The caser=2 settles an old conjecture of Erds and Rothschild, whichwas also independently raised later by Yuster. On the otherhand, for every fixed r>3 and k>2, the function F(n,r,k)is exponentially bigger than . The proofs are based on Szemerédi's regularity lemmatogether with some additional tools in extremal graph theory,and provide one of the rare examples of a precise result provedby applying this lemma.     

Incidence Theorems for Pseudoflats

We prove Pach-Sharir type incidence theorems for a class of curves in Rⁿ and surfaces in R³, which we call pseudoflats}. In particular, our results apply to a wide class of generic irreducible real algebraic sets of bounded degree.     

Quantum statistics of the degenerate four-wave mixing process

A quantum mechanical treatment is given of the degenerate four-wave mixing process. The approximate Heisenberg equation of motion for creation and annihilation operators is solved taking into account attenuation and noise. The solution and the statistics of the modes are discussed both below and above the threshold condition.     

Wigner functions and quantum interference in optics

A new, approximate generalized Wigner function based on discrete coherent state superpositions is introduced. It is shown that in contrast to the exact generalized Wigner function that may not exist in some region of its parameter the proposed approximate function exists everywhere.