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MOLD SPECIFIC QUANTITATIVE PCR FOR RAPID IDENTIFICATION AND ENUMERATION
Citation:
Vesper, S J. MOLD SPECIFIC QUANTITATIVE PCR FOR RAPID IDENTIFICATION AND ENUMERATION. To be Presented at 7th Annual Army Force Health Protection (FHP) Confernce, Albuquerque, NM, August 6-12, 2004.
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:
There is growing awareness that indoor molds/fungi may be connected to such conditions as asthma, allergies, hemorrhaging, chronic rhinosinusitis, memory loss, and a symptom complex called sick-building-syndrome. In addition, molds cause frequently fatal nosocomical infections. The US EPA has developed a mold specific quantitative PCR (MSQPCR) process that relies of the unique DNA signature of each mold species to do the identification and quantification. Assays are now available for more than 100 of the most common and relevant molds. These assays are standardized, specific, and sensitive (usually down to a single spore). The analysis can be completed in 2 to 3 hours. An automated platform can be used to perform these analyses. Examples of the use of the technology will be described in the presentation.