Molecular Probes as Diagnostic Tools

Abstract

Diseases caused by pathogenic microbes have been a serious problem since decades. They often cause high mortality in both developing and developed countries. Diseases including diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, etc., are often involved in outbreaks related to pathogens surviving in water. In recent years, the management of infectious diseases has drawn much attention among scientists and researchers. Various specific, sensitive and reproducible detection methods have been developed to identify pathogen contamination in water. These advanced methods generally use probes for diagnostics of pathogens. The present chapter attempts to focus on the development of various probe chemistries for the detection of pathogens. We also intend to present here the pros and cons of different methods.

Keywords: Amplification, Annealing, Culture, Enumeration, Fluorescence, Infectious disease, Microscopic examination, Molecular Techniques, Mortality, Outbreaks, PCR, Probe, Quantification, Quencher, Real Time PCR, SYBR GREEN1, Sensitivity, Specificity, Template, Target.