Ethidium-bromide–stained agarose gel of PCR reaction products from 12specimens through conventional method.

<p>Lane M, 100-base-pair (bp) DNA ladder; lane 1, reference strain of <i>Escherichia coli</i>; lane2, reference strain of <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>; lane 3, reference strain of <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i>; lane 4 to lane 12, representative clinical strain of <i>Escherichia coli 1-3</i>, <i>Staphylococcus aureus 1-3</i> and <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa 1-3</i>; lane 13, negative control without DNA template.</p

Identification results of clinical pathogen strains.

<p>Identification results of clinical pathogen strains.</p

Amplification curves (A) and melting curves (B) of partial experimental strains.

<p>Amplification curves (A) and melting curves (B) of partial experimental strains.</p

Sequencing results of the 12 specimens separately performed by two methods.

<p>Sequencing results of the 12 specimens separately performed by two methods.</p

Amplification curves (A) and melting curves (B) of 12 specimens and negative control from improved method.

<p>Amplification curves (A) and melting curves (B) of 12 specimens and negative control from improved method.</p

Figure 1

<p>A: Three sizes of diameter punch (0.5-mm, 1-mm, 2-mm) involving higher and lower bacteria concentrations for PCR. −6 stands for 60 CFU ml⁻¹, −1 stands for 6×10⁶ CFU ml⁻¹; B: Standard curve of real-time quantitative PCR of 6 decimal dilutions of representative Staphylococcus aureus ranging from 6×10⁴ to 6×10⁹ CFU ml⁻¹.</p

Sequence quality from the 12 samples in two methods.

<p>^*using Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test.</p>#<p>using Matched-Pairs t-text.</p