Separation of spring viraemia of carp virus from large-volume samples using immunomagnetic beads.

A method for separation of spring viraemia of carp virus (SVCV) from large-volume samples using immunomagnetic beads (IMBs) coated with a polyclonal antibody against SVCV was developed. The optimum amount of IMBs was 2 mg in 100 mL. After IMB treatment, the detection limit of SVCV in reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) was 103 times the 50% tissue culture infectious dose per mL in 100-mL samples. The concentration of viral RNA extracted from SVCV that had been separated using IMBs was 5.18 × 103-fold higher than that of the unseparated SVCV. When fish samples were tested, the concordance rates of the IMBs/RT-qPCR and RT-qPCR were 100% and 67.5%, respectively.

A rapid quantitative determination method of Luteinizing hormone with gold immunochromatographic strip.

Measurement of Luteinizing hormone (LH) levels is of great importance in guidance for pregnancy, diagnosis of ovarian diseases and evaluation of clinical effect. Gold immunochromatographic strip(GICS) assay is a rapid, simple, low-costs, and on-site technology. Quantitative detection of GICS has advantage over the traditional qualitative or semi-quantitative strip assay. In this paper, we developed a novel quantitative detection method for GICS based on smart-phone. First, smart-phone was used to acquire GICS image. Then, we applied the canny edge detection operator to extract the reading window from GICS image, and the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm to locate the test and control lines in the reading window. In order to reduce environmental interference, luminance compensation based on color constancy algorithms was applied. Finally, the property of the developed quantitative method is demonstrated by the detection of LH sample and clinical serum sample. Experimental results revealed that this method could achieve a low detection limit of 1.0 mIU/mL in a linear range from 1.0 to 125.0 mIU/mL. Furthermore, the proposed method could be used for the determination of clinical serum samples and its corresponding correlation coefficients were 0.964. Results showed that this novel method could be an effective tool for the rapid quantitative determination of LH.

Research on the synchronous detection of neuronal signals under a nerve stimulation system control.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) provides a recognized research intervention for neurological disease currently. However, there is a lack of traditional electrical stimulator to observe neuronal firing activity synchronously. The aim of the present study was to realize concurrent detection of neuronal signals better under a nerve stimulation system control. Herein, we designed an integrated software, which could control not only neuro-stimulator but also detection instrument at the same time. Moreover, the actual stimulation signals applied to the experiment object could be collected back to data acquisition card and in consistent with the electrophysiological signals. As to basic performance of self-building stimulator, the accuracy of output square signal was verified to be greater than 99.05 % with the change of voltage amplitude. Practicably, combined with homemade microelectrode array (MEA) detecting device, medial forebrain bundle (MFB) DBS effects were observed significantly through the changes of electrophysiological signals in caudate putamen (CPu) of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat, and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was 5:1 after stimulation. Therefore, the comprehensive nerve stimulation system, which consists of neuro-stimulator and integrated software, could be widely used in the field of neuroscience research with high precision and synchronization.

Research on neural information detecting system measuring neuroelectricity in hippocampus in vivo and dopamine in vitro based on microelectrode array.

Concurrently detecting the electrical activity of neurons and neurotransmitter release signals, will have a great significance in understanding the working mechanism of the brain. This paper describes a neural information detecting system based on microelectrode array(MEA) measuring neuroelectricity in hippocampus in vivo and dopamine(DA) in vitro. The detecting system contains of electrophysiological headstage, electrochemical headstage, microprocessor, electrophysiological signal amplifier, data acquisition module and neural signal analysis software. In electrophysiological test, the neural information detecting system was applied to detect neuroelectricity in hippocampus of SD rat with 16-channel microelectrode array in vivo. Active potentials were captured. The amplitude of the recorded neural spikes reached 182.90 µV, and signal to noise ratio was 7:1. For measure dopamine as neurotransmitter, there was a good linear relationship between response current and concentration of dopamine from 10nM to 18.88µ with correlation coefficient of 0.9974. Electrophysiological experiment and electrochemical experiment demonstrate the capability of the neural information detecting system to capture dual mode neural signal, which provides a convenient way to study dual mode operating mechanism of neural system.