South Australian Water Corporation

About: South Australian Water Corporation is a company organization based out in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Water treatment & Geosmin. The organization has 107 authors who have published 215 publications receiving 10579 citations. The organization is also known as: SA Water.

Variation in Giardia: implications for taxonomy and epidemiology.

Abstract: The taxonomy, life cycle patterns and zoonotic potential of Giardia infecting mammals and birds have been poorly understood and controversial for many years. The development of molecular tools for characterising isolates of Giardia directly from faeces or environmental samples has made an enormous contribution to resolving these issues. It is now clear that the G. duodenalis morphological group is a species complex comprising a series of what appear to be largely host-adapted species, and at least two zoonotic species for which humans are the major host, but which are also capable of infecting other mammals. It is proposed that this new information be reflected in the redesignation of several species of Giardia described previously. The molecular epidemiological tools that are now available need to be applied in different endemic foci of Giardia transmission, as well as in outbreak situations, in order to understand better the frequency of zoonotic transmission as well as to develop more effective approaches to controlling giardiasis.

Demonstration of preferential binding of SYBR Green I to specific DNA fragments in real‐time multiplex PCR

Abstract: SYBR Green I (SG) is widely used in real-time PCR applications as an intercalating dye and is included in many commercially available kits at undisclosed concentrations. Binding of SG to double-stranded DNA is non-specific and additional testing, such as DNA melting curve analysis, is required to confirm the generation of a specific amplicon. The use of melt curve analysis eliminates the necessity for agarose gel electrophoresis because the melting temperature (Tm) of the specific amplicon is analogous to the detection of an electrophoretic band. When using SG for real-time PCR multiplex reactions, discrimination of amplicons should be possible, provided the Tm values are sufficiently different. Real-time multiplex assays for Vibrio cholerae and Legionella pneumophila using commercially available kits and in-house SG mastermixes have highlighted variability in performance characteristics, in particular the detection of only a single product as assessed by Tm analysis but multiple products as assessed by agarose gel electrophoresis. The detected Tm corresponds to the amplicon with the higher G+C% and larger size, suggesting preferential binding of SG during PCR and resulting in the failure to detect multiple amplicons in multiplex reactions when the amount of SG present is limiting. This has implications for the design and routine application of diagnostic real-time PCR assays employing SG.