Compositions and Methods Used in Identifying Fungus
Description
The invention encompasses methods of using quantitative PCR to detect fungal organisms in clinical and environmental samples such as soil, air, water, and foodstuffs. Specifically, the invention incorporates primer sets that amplify a region of the 18s rRNA gene of fungi to provide pan-fungal, real-time quantitative PCR detection and quantification.
Additional information
Patent number and inventor
8,722,335 and 9,434,986
Cindy Liu, Sergey Kachur, Lance Price, and Paul Keim.
Potential applications
Clinical applications to detect and quantify fungus.
Benefits and advantages
The aim of the invention is to improve the diagnosis of fungal infections. With current techniques, fungal infections are difficult to diagnose. Because fungi are difficult to culture, the infections are underdiagnosed and under-treated. This assay provides a tool that allows sample analysis without prior knowledge of the fungi’s presence.
Case number and licensing status
2010-009
This invention is available for licensing.