HIGHLIGHTS:
The Enteric Microbiology laboratory conducts research in the development and application of phenotypic and molecular techniques to identify and characterize organisms causing diarrhoea, from both ICDDR,B clinical sources and the environment.
Techniques used include gel electrophoresis, nucleic acid preparation, hybridization using non-radioactive probes, ribotyping, oligonucleotide preparation by Oligo 1000 DNA Synthesizer, DNA amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and fluorescent actin-staining test (FAST).
Diagnostic techniques routinely used include conventional bacteriological culture method, ELISA, tissue culture assay, phage isolation and characterization, colony blot hybridization, DNA probe and PCR assays for rapid identification of diarrhoeal pathogens. Genetic fingerprinting of pathogenic bacteria is done using plasmid analysis, enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR (ERIC-PCR), random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), PFGE, Ribotyping, PCR-RFLP, RFLP of O-Ag sequence by long PCR as an aid to epidemiological studies.
Phenotypic and molecular epidemiology of Vibrio cholerae, V. paraha emolyticus, Campylobacter, E .coli (especially on Shiga-toxin-producing E, coli), Shigella, Salmonella, Aeromonus, and Helicobacter pylori are conducted. Antibiotic resistance of Shigella and Salmonella typhi is monitored.
