A Rapid and Economic In-House DNA Purification Method Using Glass Syringe Filters

Background Purity, yield, speed and cost are important considerations in plasmid purification, but it is difficult to achieve all of these at the same time. Currently, there are many protocols and kits for DNA purification, however none maximize all four considerations. Methodology/Principal Findings We now describe a fast, efficient and economic in-house protocol for plasmid preparation using glass syringe filters. Plasmid yield and quality as determined by enzyme digestion and transfection efficiency were equivalent to the expensive commercial kits. Importantly, the time required for purification was much less than that required using a commercial kit. Conclusions/Significance This method provides DNA yield and quality similar to that obtained with commercial kits, but is more rapid and less costly.This research was supported by Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewe

Fatal Disseminated Cryptococcus gattii Infection in New Mexico

We report a case of fatal disseminated infection with Cryptococcus gattii in a patient from New Mexico. The patient had no history of recent travel to known C. gattii-endemic areas. Multilocus sequence typing revealed that the isolate belonged to the major molecular type VGIII. Virulence studies in a mouse pulmonary model of infection demonstrated that the strain was less virulent than other C. gattii strains. This represents the first documented case of C. gattii likely acquired in New Mexico

Definite Quadratic Forms over F_q[x]

Le R be a principalidec domain withquotie tfie F.An R-lattice is afre R-module offinite rank spanninganinne productspace ove .The classififi problem asks for areg- ee e se ofcrite to degwhe two give R-lattice are isomee that is, whethe is an inne ductpreg-gege carryingone lattice ontothe othe In this pap R isthe polynomial ring Fq [x],whe q is afinite fiet of oddorde q.For q [x]-lattice as for Z-lattice the theti splits into"deg and"indeg- cased and this pape seg the classificationproble inthe de case The claswx;3T""k of definite quadraticforms over the rational integers is a notorious" intractable problem. An exceptionis the binarycasr Gaus ss wed that every definite binary form over equivalent to a unique "reduced" form that can be found algorithmically; and two binary forms are equivalent if and only if they have the se3 reduced form. But forforms 3, while there are a number of reductiontheories developed by MinkowsW andothers nonehas proved entirelysely3"kFFk3 . For example, a given form may be equivalent to more than one reduced form; and determining whether two given reducedforms are equivalent may be computationally daunting. We refer the reader to Nipp [11] for a concrete expos3w;; ofthes matters and to Conway--Sloane [2], Chapter 15, for a broadsoa ey of theclas""F3Tw[" problem over Z

Orthogonal splitting and class numbers of quadratic forms

AbstractOrthogonal splitting for lattices on quadratic spaces over algebraic number fields is studied. It is seen that if the rank of a lattice is sufficiently large, then its spinor genus must contain a decomposable lattice. Also, splitting theory is used to obtain a lower bound for the class number of a lattice (in the definite case) in terms of its rank, via the partition function