15 articles
Bacilloscopy
Bacilloscopy, also called sputum smear microscopy or acid-fast bacillus (AFB) testing, is microscopic examination of stained smears to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Ziehl-Neelsen or auramine staining, 25-75% sensitivity versus culture, high specificity.
Bacterial Load
Bacterial load is the quantity of bacteria in a sample such as blood, sputum, or a wound, measured by culture or qPCR and often linked to mortality risk.
Bacteriological Techniques
Bacteriological techniques are the laboratory methods used to detect, grow, and identify bacteria, ranging from Gram staining and culture to PCR and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.
Conditioned Culture Media
Conditioned culture media (conditioned medium, CCM) is cell culture medium enriched with the secretome of cultivated cells, used for co-culture signaling studies, extracellular vesicle isolation, and cell-free regenerative therapies, with known purity and standardization limits.
Hemadsorption Inhibition Tests
Hemadsorption inhibition tests are virological assays in which erythrocytes bind virus-infected cell monolayers and specific antiserum blocks that binding, identifying hemadsorbing viruses such as influenza, parainfluenza, and mumps, or quantifying myxovirus antibodies.
Microbiological analysis
Microbiological analysis detects, identifies, and quantifies microorganisms in food, water, environmental, and clinical samples using culture, microscopy, immunoassay, PCR, and metagenomic methods, governed by standards such as ISO/TC 34/SC 9 and CDC biosafety guidance.
Microbiological Techniques
Microbiological techniques: laboratory methods to detect, culture, identify, and study microorganisms, from microscopy, Gram stain, and pure-culture methods to 16S rRNA sequencing, metagenomics, PCR, and automated clinical diagnostics.
Molecular Typing
Molecular typing, or pathogen DNA fingerprinting, identifies microbial strains by genetic material to distinguish outbreak from nonoutbreak strains; methods span PFGE, MLST, cgMLST, and whole-genome sequencing.
Mycological Typing Techniques
Mycological typing techniques, or fungal typing, are laboratory procedures for identifying types and strains of fungi, spanning phenotypic biotyping, RFLP, karyotyping, MLST, microsatellite typing, and whole genome sequencing.
Neutralization Tests
Neutralization tests are serology assays measuring functional antibodies that block virus infection of cell cultures. Formats include PRNT, microneutralization, pseudovirus tests, and surrogate RBD-ACE2 blocking ELISAs; PRNT is the gold standard.
Parasite Egg Count
A parasite egg count is a laboratory measurement of parasite eggs per gram of feces, estimating helminth infection intensity in humans and animals and guiding public-health deworming programs.
Primary Cell Culture
Primary cell culture: freshly isolated, non-immortalized cells grown in vitro, retaining native tissue morphology and function; finite lifespan (Hayflick limit, ~6-10 passages), unlike immortalized cell lines.
Serum bactericidal assay
Serum bactericidal antibody (SBA) assay, also called hSBA or rSBA by complement source, is an in vitro test measuring antibody- and complement-mediated bacterial killing; the accepted correlate of protection for meningococcal vaccines, with hSBA titer 4 or rSBA titer 8 thresholds.
Viral Plaque Assay
Viral plaque assay (plaque assay, PFU assay): cell culture method counting plaques of dead cells to quantify infectious virus in PFU/mL; developed by d'Herelle (1917) and Dulbecco and Vogt (1952); basis of the PRNT.
Virus Inactivation
Virus inactivation: irreversible destruction of viral infectivity by heat, UV or gamma radiation, pH extremes, detergents, solvents, and chemical agents; measured as log reduction and validated under ICH Q5A(R2) and EMA guidelines.