Search

Background: DNA-based computing is an emerging research aspect that enables the in-vivo computation and decision making with significant correctness. Recent papers show that the expression level of miRNAs are related to the progress status of some diseases such as cancers and DNA computing is introduced as a low cost and concise technique for detection of these biomarkers. In this paper, DNAbased logic gates are implemented in the laboratory to detect the level of miR-21 as the biomarker of cancer. Materials and Methods: At the first, required strands for designing DNA gates are synthesized. Then, double stranded gate is generated in laboratory using a temperature gradient that followed by electrophoresis process. This double strand is the computation engine for detecting the miR-21 biomarker. miR-21 is as input in designed gate. At the end, the expression level of miR-21 is identified by measuring the generated fluorescent. Results: at the first stage, the proposed DNA-based logic gate is evaluated by using the synthesized input strands and then it is experimented on a tumor tissue. Experimental results on synthesized strands show that its detection quality/correctness is 2.5x better than conventional methods. Conclusion: Experimental results on the tumor tissues are successful and are matched with those are extracted from real time PCR results. Also, the results show that this method is significantly more suitable than real time PCR in view of time and cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Leishmaniasis is a protozoan parasitic disease and a global health problem. The aim of this study is to diagnose the parasitic infection in humans for epidemiological identification and providing control programs using proprietary co-designed primers in three species of Leishmania. Materials and Methods: 30 common Leishmania isolates were gathered from different centers in Iran. Having been cultured in RPMI-1640 Medium, DNA was extracted and the gene ITS2-rRNA was amplified by PCR. The amplicons were examined by electrophoresis on agarose gel 2%. Also, in FLASH PCR method, a specific probe and florence colour were used to investigae the amplicon existence on sample. Results: The results of the investigations by PCR and FLASH PCR methods show that these methods are sensitive and specific for diagnosis of Leishmania Conclusion: In this study, identification of Leishmania parasite using specific primer pairs was successful and TaqMan could be one of the most sensitive diagnostic methods to identify parasite load for the ITS2 region of Leishmania [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]