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Hindawi Publishing CorporationBioMed Research InternationalVolume 2013, Article ID 172521, 2 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/172521

EditorialAdvances in Molecular Diagnostics

Tavan Janvilisri,1 Arun K. Bhunia,2 and Joy Scaria3

1 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, Thailand2Department of Food Science and Department of Comparative Pathobiology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA3Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca,NY 14850, USA

Correspondence should be addressed to Tavan Janvilisri; [email protected]

Received 28 April 2013; Accepted 28 April 2013

Copyright © 2013 Tavan Janvilisri et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

People at present day are facing serious global challenges inhealthcare from emerging and reemerging diseases. Researchin molecular diagnostics has provided us with the bet-ter understanding of molecular processes affecting humanhealth, and diseases and the tools derived thereof are becom-ing the standard of care for treatment of several diseases.The availability of new sequencing methods, microarrays,microfluidics, biosensors, and biomarker assays has made ashift toward developing diagnostic platforms, which stimu-lates growth in the field by providing answers to questionsregarding diagnosis, prognosis, and best course of treatment,leading to improved outcomes and greater cost savings. It isequally important to identify and resolve existing challengesthat impede the effective translation of validated diagnosticbiomarkers from laboratory to clinical practice in order to seeresults from these efforts.

This special issue contains nine articles, where one reviewarticle focuses on microvesicles as a potential biomarker forovarian cancer, three papers are related to nucleic-acid-baseddetection of pathogens. Twopapers focus on the developmentof detecting methods while another paper aims to evaluatethe types of samples for diagnosis. Finally, two papers addressthe relationship between biomarkers and cancer. Thus, thepapers in this special issue, representing a broad spectrum ofexperimental approaches and areas of investigation, demon-strate a wide array of molecular diagnostic research. Thisunique and informative collection of papers in “Advancesin Molecular Diagnostics” showcases the identification andcharacterization of molecular biomarkers and the develop-ment of practical applications ormethodologies for diagnosis

and prognosis including the evaluation of the efficacy ofvarious diagnostic platforms in both laboratory and clinicalsettings.There are also papers dealing with criteria of optimaldetection methods in clinical samples, leading to a guidelineas a tool for clinical guidance.

In “Microvesicles as potential ovarian cancer biomarkers,”I. Giusti et al. provided us a perspective review that summa-rizes the potential use of microvesicles released from tumorcells, especially regarding their microRNA profiles, as a novelmolecular biomarker for ovarian cancer.

In “Development of a broad-range 23S rDNA real-timePCR assay for the detection and quantification of pathogenicbacteria in human whole blood and plasma specimens,” P.Gaibani et al. developed a new broad-range real-time PCRassay targeting the 23S rDNA gene that could detect thetargeted bacterial 23S rDNA gene as low as 10 plasmidcopies per reaction. This assay could allow us to quantifytotal bacterial DNA in the whole blood and plasma sampleswithout the need for a precise bacterial species identification.

In “Apentaplex PCRassay for the detection and differentia-tion of Shigella species,” S. C. Ojha et al. developed a pentaplexPCR assay for the simultaneous detection and differentiationof the Shigella genus and the three Shigella species responsiblefor the majority of shigellosis cases. The average detection ofthis PCR assay was 5.4 × 104 CFU/mL, which is within thecommon detection limit for Shigella.

In “Evaluation of multiplex PCR with enhanced spore ger-mination for detection of Clostridium difficile from stool sam-ples of the hospitalized patients,” S. Chankhamhaengdechaet al. designed a new multiplex-PCR based assay for the

2 BioMed Research International

detection of C. difficile and evaluated the sample processingsteps prior to the multiplex PCR diagnosis from clinicalstool samples. This enrichment multiplex PCR could be analternative approach to enzyme immuno assays for rapid andcost-effective detection of C. difficile.

In “Microsphere suspension array assays for detection anddifferentiation of Hendra and Nipah viruses,” A. J. Foord et al.presented microsphere suspension array assays to simultane-ously identify multiple separate nucleotide targets in a singlereaction.Themain goal of this researchwas to incorporate theHendra and Nipah viruses microsphere as modules in mul-tiplexed microsphere arrays. Their results were comparableto qPCR, indicating high analytical and diagnostic specificityand sensitivity.

In “Development of a generic microfluidic device forsimultaneous detection of antibodies and nucleic acids in oralfluids,” Z. Chen et al. demonstrated a portable processingsystem for disposable microfluidic chips suitable for point-of-care settings in the diagnosis, detection, and confirmationof infectious disease pathogens. The HIV infection was usedas a model to investigate the simultaneous detection of bothhuman antibodies against the virus and viral RNA.

In “Urine cell-free DNA integrity as a marker for earlyprostate cancer diagnosis: a pilot study,” V. Casadio et al. eval-uated the potential use of urine cell-free DNA as a promisingnoninvasive marker for the early diagnosis of prostate cancer.The overall diagnostic accuracy was approximately 80%.The preliminary data in this paper could pave the way forconfirmatory studies on larger case series.

In “Development of a novel system for mass spectrometricanalysis of cancer-associated fucosylation in plasma 𝛼1-acidglycoprotein,” T. Asao et al. evaluated the fucosylated glycansas novel tumor markers that could be of clinical relevance inthe diagnosis and assessment of cancer progression as well aspatient prognosis. They also developed a novel software sys-tem for use in combinationwith amass spectrometer to deter-mine N-linked glycans in 𝛼1-acid glycoprotein that could bevaluable for screening plasma samples to identify biomarkersof cancer progression based on fucosylated glycans.

In “The associated ion between the VDR gene polymor-phisms and susceptibility to hepatocellular carcinoma and theclinicopathological features in subjects infected with HBV,” X.Yao et al. evaluated the possible association between thevitaminD receptor (VDR), single-nucleotide polymorphisms(SNPs), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients withchronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and found thatthe C > T polymorphisms at FokI position in the VDR geneserved as a potential biomarker for the risk and the diseaseseverity of HCC in those infected with HBV.

Finally, we would like to thank the authors for their con-tributions in this special issue and all reviewers for criticalreview of the manuscripts.

Tavan JanvilisriArun K. Bhunia

Joy Scaria

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