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Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) play an important role in susceptibility to complex diseases, treatment efficacy and adverse drug responses. Conventional methods to detect SNPs are usually based on PCR or DNA sequencing, which are typically time-consuming and require sophisticated equipment. In this proof-of-concept study, a probe-directed recombinase amplification (PDRA) assay was developed to detect the A1298C polymorphism of 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). The PDRA assay included two real-time reactions to detect the A and C nucleotides of A1298C polymorphism. Each reaction contained only one primer and one probe and was finished at 39°C within 35 min. The results of genotyping of 150 clinical samples using PDRA were completely consistent with those by direct sequencing. Additionally, when the 1000 Genomes Project HCB frequencies were used as the control group, MTHFR A1298C was found to be associated with congenital heart disease. In conclusion, the proposed novel PDRA assay is a valuable tool for the detection of SNPs and demonstrates significant potential to be widely applicable in both research and clinical settings.

Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a serious public health problem, and coxsackievirus A6 (CVA6) and coxsackievirus A10 (CVA10) are two of the major causative pathogens, in addition to enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16). A simple and rapid reverse transcription recombinase-aided amplification assay (RT-RAA) was developed for the detection of CVA10 and CVA6 in this study. The analytical sensitivity for detection of CVA10 and CVA6 at 95% probability by probit regression analysis was 35 copies per reaction and 38 copies per reaction, respectively, with 100% specificity. Compared with commercial RT-qPCR assays, when testing 455 fecal specimens, the kappa value of the RT-RAA assay for CVA10 and CVA6 was 0.920 (p < 0.001) and 0.952 (p < 0.001), respectively. Moreover, four samples that were positive for CVA10 and five that were positive for CVA6 by RT-RAA but negative by RT-qPCR were further determined to be true positives. These results demonstrate that the proposed RT-RAA assays are very valuable tools for the detection of CVA10 and CVA6 and have potential for use in resource-limited settings.

Central nervous system infection (CNSI) results in significant health and economic burdens worldwide, but the diversity of causative pathogens makes differential diagnosis very difficult. Although PCR and real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (q-PCR) assays are widely applied for pathogen detection, they are generally optimized for the detection of a single or limited number of targets and are not suitable for the diagnosis of numerous CNSI agents. In this study, we describe the development of a resequencing pathogen microarray (RPM-IVDC4) method for the simultaneous detection of viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites that cause CNSI. The test panel of this assay included more than 100 microorganism species across 45 genera and 30 families. The analytical specificity and sensitivity were examined using a panel of positive reference strains, and the clinical performance was evaluated using 432 clinical samples by comparing the results with q-PCR assays. Our results demonstrated good performance of the RPM-IVDC4 assay in terms of sensitivity, specificity and detection range, suggesting that the platform can be further developed for high-throughput CNSI diagnosis. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00705-017-3550-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background Diarrhea is a major source of morbidity and mortality among young children in low-income and middle-income countries. Human adenoviruses (HAdV), particular HAdV species F (40, 41) has been recognized as important causal pathogens, however limited data exist on molecular epidemiology of other HAdV associated with acute gastroenteritis. Methods In the present preliminary study, we performed a case-control study involving 273 children who presented diarrheal disease and 361 healthy children matched control in Children’s hospital of Hebei Province (China) to investigate the relationship between non-enteric HAdV and diarrhea. HAdV were detected and quantified using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and serotyped by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. Odds ratio (OR) was used to assess the risk factor of HAdV. Results HAdV were detected in 79 (28.94%) of 273 children with diarrhea including 7 different serotypes (HAdV 40, 41, 3, 2,1,5 and 57) with serotypes 40, 41 and 3 being the most dominant and in 26 (7.20%) of 361 healthy children containing 9 serotypes (HAdV 40, 41, 3, 2,1,5,57,6 and 31). A majority (91.14%) of HAdV positives occurred in diarrhea children and 65.38% in controls

In this study, a rapid reverse-transcription recombinase aided amplification (RT-RAA) assay was developed to detect respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) subgroups A and B, respectively. The reaction was performed at 39°C in less than 30 min. The analytical sensitivities of RSVA and RSVB at 95% probability by probit regression analysis were 38copies per reaction and 35 copies per reaction, respectively, and no cross reactions with other related respiratory viruses were observed. The RT-RAA assay was further utilized to detect and subgroup 306 clinical specimens and the results showed that 79(25.82%, 79/306) samples were positive for RSV, of those 16(20.25%, 16/79) were identified as RSVA and 63(79.75%, 63/79) were RSVB, which is completely consistent with the results obtained by RSV RT-qPCR assay. In conclusion, the developed RAA assay will be of benefit as a faster, sensitive and specific alternative tool for detection of RSV.

This paper proposes a new type of stub-loaded slotline resonat cell for exploration of a bandpass filter (BPF) with a tunable transmission zero (TZ). The circuit is constructed of a conventional uniform-impedance slotline resonator with a centrally loaded slotline stub. Based on Even-Odd theory, it can be observed that the proposed resonator has two resonant modes, the even and odd modes. And a finite-frequency transmission zero is also generated that can be individually controlled by the odd mode. Then a novel type of BPFs is realized using the proposed slotline resonator, which has a flexibly controllable TZ that can be individually tuned by the adjusting the odd mode. The simulation results validate the design flow well.

In this letter, a novel 3-order combine filter, based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology, is proposed. Two mixed electric-magnetic(EM) couplings between three resonators introduce two independently controllable transmission zeros(TZs) located at both sides of the passband resulting in a flexible quasi-elliptic response. To demonstrate the proposed filter, an example with 8% FBW is designed and measured. The good agreement between simulation and measurement shows the filter with advantages of low loss and high rejection. Besides, it also exhibits other merits such as size reduction from conventional SIW, single-layer and low-cost.

The third-order nonlinear optical properties of water-soluble Cu Se nanocrystals are studied in the near infrared range of 700–980 nm using a femtosecond pulsed laser by the Z-scan technique. It is observed that the nonlinear optical response of Cu Se nanocrystals is sensitively dependent on the excitation wavelength and exhibits the enhanced nonlinearity compared with other selenides such as ZnSe and CdSe. The W-shaped Z-scan trace, a mixture of the reversed saturated absorption and saturated absorption, is observed near the plasmon resonance band of Cu Se nanocrystals, which is attributed to the state-filling of free carriers generated by copper vacancies (self-doping effect) of Cu Se nanocrystals as well as the hot carrier thermal effect upon intense femtosecond laser excitation. The large nonlinear optical response and tunable plasmonic band make Cu Se nanocrystals promising materials for applications in ultra-fast all-optical switching devices as well as nonlinear nanosensors.

The carrier-density-dependent spin relaxation dynamics for modulation-doped GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7 As quantum wells is studied using the time-resolved magneto-Kerr rotation measurements. The electron spin relaxation time and its in-plane anisotropy are studied as a function of the optically injected electron density. Moreover, the relative strength of the Rashba and the Dresselhaus spin—orbit coupling fields, and thus the observed spin relaxation time anisotropy, is further tuned by the additional excitation of a 532 nm continuous wave laser, demonstrating an effective spin relaxation manipulation via an optical gating method.

© 2016 Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd. We report the observation of spectral broadening induced by 200 femtosecond laser pulses with the repetition rate of 1 kHz at the wavelength of 532 nm in semi-insulating 4H-SiC single crystals. It is demonstrated that the full width at half maximum of output spectrum increases linearly with the light propagation length and the peak power density, reaching a maximum 870 cm -1 on a crystal of 19 mm long under an incident laser with a peak power density of 60.1 GW/cm 2 . Such spectral broadening can be well explained by the self-phase modulation model which correlates time-dependent phase change of pulses to intensity-dependent refractive index. The nonlinear refractive index n 2 is estimated to be 1.88×10 -15 cm 2 /W. The intensity-dependent refractive index is probably due to both the nonlinear optical polarizability of the bound electrons and the increase of free electrons induced by the two-photon absorption process. Super continuum spectra could arise as crystals are long enough to induce the self-focusing effect. The results show that SiC crystals may find applications in spectral broadening of high power lasers.