HIV futures NZ2: Mate araikore a muri ake nei (Tuarua)

The Living with HIV Program is a part of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University. The program conducts social research into the lived experience of HIV. The HIV Futures New Zealand 2 survey was completed by 261 HIV positive people. 75.7% were male (196), 23.9% were female (62), and one person was transgender. 60.7% were gay men, 22.7% heterosexual women, 10.1% heterosexual men, 6.1% bisexual men, and 0.4% lesbian women. The respondents’ ages ranged from 23 to 88 years with a mean of 45.6 years and a median of 44.0 years. The majority of participants were New Zealand born (69.4%) and 89.8% of the participants spoke English at home, with North African languages accounting for most of the remainder. Of the total sample, 255 indicated their ethnicity. One hundred and seventy two were European/Pakeha (65.9%), 49 were African (18.8%), 17 were Maori (6.5%), nine were Asian (3.4%) and five were Pacific Islanders (1.9%)

The Iceland Microcontinent and a continental Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge

The breakup of Laurasia to form the Northeast Atlantic Realm was the culmination of a long period of tectonic unrest extending back to the Late Palaeozoic. Breakup was prolonged and complex and disintegrated an inhomogeneous collage of cratons sutured by cross-cutting orogens. Volcanic rifted margins formed, which are blanketed by lavas and underlain variously by magma-inflated, extended continental crust and mafic high-velocity lower crust of ambiguous and probably partly continental provenance. New rifts formed by diachronous propagation along old zones of weakness. North of the Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge the newly forming rift propagated south along the Caledonian suture. South of the Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge it propagated north through the North Atlantic Craton along an axis displaced ~ 150 km to the west of the northern rift. Both propagators stalled where the confluence of the Nagssugtoqidian and Caledonian orogens formed a transverse barrier. Thereafter, the ~ 400-km-wide latitudinal zone between the stalled rift tips extended in a distributed, unstable manner along multiple axes of extension that frequently migrated or jumped laterally with shearing occurring between them in diffuse transfer zones. This style of deformation continues to the present day. It is the surface expression of underlying magma-assisted stretching of ductile mid- and lower continental crust which comprises the Icelandic-type lower crust that underlies the Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge. This, and probably also one or more full-crustal-thickness microcontinents incorporated in the Ridge, are capped by surface lavas. The Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge thus has a similar structure to some zones of seaward-dipping reflectors. The contemporaneous melt layer corresponds to the 3–10 km thick Icelandic-type upper crust plus magma emplaced in the ~ 10–30-km-thick Icelandic-type lower crust. This model can account for seismic and gravity data that are inconsistent with a gabbroic composition for Icelandic-type lower crust, and petrological data that show no reasonable temperature or source composition could generate the full ~ 40-km thickness of Icelandic-type crust observed. Numerical modeling confirms that extension of the continental crust can continue for many tens of Myr by lower-crustal flow from beneath the adjacent continents. Petrological estimates of the maximum potential temperature of the source of Icelandic lavas are up to 1450 °C, no more than ~ 100 °C hotter than MORB source. The geochemistry is compatible with a source comprising hydrous peridotite/pyroxenite with a component of continental mid- and lower crust. The fusible petrology, high source volatile contents, and frequent formation of new rifts can account for the true ~ 15–20 km melt thickness at the moderate temperatures observed. A continuous swathe of magma-inflated continental material beneath the 1200-km-wide Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge implies that full continental breakup has not yet occurred at this latitude. Ongoing tectonic instability on the Ridge is manifest in long-term tectonic disequilibrium on the adjacent rifted margins and on the Reykjanes Ridge, where southerly migrating propagators that initiate at Iceland are associated with diachronous swathes of unusually thick oceanic crust. Magmatic volumes in the NE Atlantic Realm have likely been overestimated and the concept of a monogenetic North Atlantic Igneous Province needs to be reappraised. A model of complex, piecemeal breakup controlled by pre-existing structures that produces anomalous volcanism at barriers to rift propagation and distributes continental material in the growing oceans fits other oceanic regions including the Davis Strait and the South Atlantic and West Indian oceans

Rapid distinction between Leptospira interrogans and Leptospira biflexa by PCR amplification of 23S ribosomal DNA

Bacterial specific primers were used to amplify 23S rRNA genes from a representative strain from each of the 23 serogroups of the pathogenic Leptospira interrogans and 8 strains from 6 serogroups of the non-pathogenic Leptospira biflexa. Only regions of extreme variability, which had been identified on the basis of homology-based search of all the 23S rRNA sequences available in GenBank database, were sequenced from the amplified products. PCR primers that had the potential to distinguish L. interrogans from L. biflexa species were designed from the derived sequences and a sensitive PCR protocol developed. The PCR method enabled the differentiation of the 59 strains of the 23 serogroups of L. interrogans from the 8 strains of 6 serogroups of L. biflexa. Further investigation by 16S rDNA sequencing of two strains of L. interrogans, which gave unexpected PCR results, provided evidence that they had been misclassified and hence we propose to reassign them to L. biflexa

Rapid distinction between Leptonema and Leptospira by PCR amplification of 16S-23S ribosomal DNA spacer

This article is free to read on the publishers website The PCR amplification of the genomic DNA of Leptonema illini strain 3055 using primers directed against conserved regions of the rRNA operon provided evidence that the 16S and 23S rRNA genes were linked via an intergenic spacer region. The sequencing of the intergenic spacer region indicated that it was 435 nucleotides in length and sequence similarity searches revealed that it bore no homology to any known sequences including tRNA available in databases. Further investigations using Southern blot hybridization revealed that there were two copies of these linked genes in the genome. However, similar PCR studies on a representative strain from each of the 23 serogroups of Leptospira interrogans, which are pathogenic, and eight strains from the 6 serogroups of Leptospira biflexa, which are non-pathogenic, revealed that the 16S and 23S rRNA genes were not linked

Comparison of two PCR methods for rapid identification of Leptospira genospecies interrogans

This article is free to read on the publishers website Based on (i) an analysis of Leptospira 16S rDNA sequences determined by us and of those from databases and (ii) a previously published finding that restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) within the Leptospira 16S and 23S rDNA were detected by nine restriction enzymes and these RFLPs allowed categorisation of Leptospira into eight genospecies, we predicted that one particular DdeI restriction site polymorphism within 16S rDNA could be independently used for identifications of Leptospira strains belonging to the genospecies interrogans. Two PCR-based methods, namely allele-specific amplification (ASA) and PCR-RFLP, were tested for the rapid detection of the DdeI restriction site polymorphism. One or two representative strains from each of nine genospecies were tested by ASA, whereas 73 strains from nine genospecies and two field isolates were tested by PCR-RFLP. Our experiments showed that the ASA method was not as specific as intended, but the PCR-RFLP method was useful for rapid identifications of the genospecies interrogans. We have not only confirmed a previous finding and extended the number of samples particularly from the genospecies biflexa, weilii, and inadai, but also simplified a previous PCR-RFLP protocol

Identification of pathogenic Leptospira by TaqMan probe in a LightCycler

The genus Leptospira is divided into two species of which Leptospira interrogans is an animal pathogen which causes infections in humans when in contact with body fluids of infected animals, whereas Leptospira biflexa is a nonpathogenic saprophyte. Leptospires are identified on the basis of serology and DNA–DNA hybridization techniques but alternative molecular typing methods based mainly on PCR have also been developed with some degree of success (1–16). Recently, non-gel electrophoresis-requiring, fluorophore probe-based rapid techniques for detecting and discriminating specific amplicons during PCR have been introduced (17–19). In the TaqMan probe, both donor and acceptor fluorophores are present on the same oligonucleotide that binds to a target site internal to the amplification primers..

Real-time homogeneous assay of rapid cycle polymerase chain reaction product for identification of Leptonema illini

Partial 16S rDNA sequences of eight Leptospira-like field isolates that reacted weakly or not at all to microscope agglutination test were found to be similar to the 16S rDNA sequence of the nonpathogen Leptonema illini-type strain 3055. Comparison of these sequences with those of Leptospira 16S rDNA sequences revealed a Leptonema species signature sequence for which a forward amplification primer was designed. This primer was used in conjunction with a bacterial-specific 16S rDNA universal reverse primer for developing a LightCycler-based rapid PCR protocol in which fluorescence emission due to the binding of SYBR green I dye to the amplified products was continuously monitored. A melting temperature (Tm) determined from the melting curve of the amplified product immediately after PCR confirmed that the product was of Leptonema. The protocol for 24 samples consisting of 30 PCR cycles and melting curve acquisitions required 30 min to complete and agarose gel electrophoresis of the PCR products was not necessary. The method was specific as PCR products were detected from the seven Leptonema reference strains and the eight field isolates that had been previously verified as Leptonema by 16S rDNA sequencing, but not from the two representative strains from each of the eight Leptospira genospecies tested