The total number of known bacteria, eukaryotes, and viruses that pose a threat to human health is
more than one hundred. At least half of these are relevant to water and food safety. Their control in
water has been most economically achieved through the use of indicator organisms and treatment
technologies. To regulate individual microorganisms, if and when necessary, tools to prioritize the
above list of microorganisms with respect to their potential to cause harm must be available.
Evaluation and establishment of virulence-factor activity relationships (VFARs) has been suggested
as one approach to accomplish this prioritization. VFARs can be defined as a set of relationships
(expected and to be established) between distinguishing informational and functional molecules and
the corresponding virulent activity of microorganisms- modulated by environmental and host-related
factors. Evaluation of the existence and extent of such relationships requires dedicated informational
databases and high throughput experimental tools (e.g., DNA biochips). We are evaluating a pilotscale
database for this purpose focusing on selected examples of bacteria, eukaryotes, and viruses.
We are also evaluating the design and fabrication of a VFAR biochip to be validated for waterborne
pathogens. The work presented here summarizes the main characteristics of this database. It also
discusses the issues related to the development of the VFAR biochip including probe design,
specificity, sensitivity, detection limit, target amplification, reliability, and sample processing. The
information gained through the development of this database and the biochip may be used in
designing microarrays to detect hundreds to thousands of virulence factors irrespective of the host
microorganisms.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 840 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 20 |
| Published : | 06/17/2004 |
