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A REVOLUTION IN MOLD IDENTIFICATION AND ENUMERATION
Citation:
Vesper, S J. A REVOLUTION IN MOLD IDENTIFICATION AND ENUMERATION. Presented at Building Environment Council of Ohio Spring Conference, Columbus, OH, April 10, 2003.
Impact/Purpose:
To understand children's risks from exposure to molds in their environment and to explore risk management options for mitigating those risks.
Description:
More than 100 assay were developed to identify and quantify indoor molds using quantitiative PCR (QPCR) assays. This technology incorporates fluorigenic 5' nuclease (TaqMan�) chemistry directed at the nuclear ribosomal RNA operon internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS1 or ITS2). The assays varied in specificity from species to closely related groups of species, subject to the amount of nucleotide sequence variation in the different organisms. Estimated conidia detection limits ranged from less than one to several hundred per sample for the different assays, using a previously reported glass bead milling and glass filter purification DNA extraction method. The precision, accuracy and sensitivity of the method were determined from analyses of replicate mixed conidia suspensions and different dust samples spiked with known quantities of target organisms.