Book Info

BC Research Institute for Children's and Women's Health, Vancouver, Canada. Comprehensive and interdisciplinary survey of recent advances and knowledge about this disease. Review-and methods-based chapters provide essential data for diagnosis in the clinical microbiology lab. DNLM: Meningitis, Meningococcal-diagnosis.

Book Description

Andrew Pollard and Martin Maiden bring together a panel of leading authorities to produce a comprehensive, interdisciplinary survey of recent advances and knowledge about meneigococcal disease. The review and methods-based chapters collected here provide essential information for diagnosis in the clinical microbiology laboratory, isolate characterization, clinical management, and control of meningococcal disease. They also examine the immunopathological mechanisms occurring in the acutely ill, host-pathogen interactions, and the possible components of meningococcus responsible for virulence. Meningococcal Disease: Methods and Protocols integrates the basic science, clinical, and epidemiological aspects of this terrible infectious disease to promote the deeper understanding needed to identify novel targets for therapeutic interventions and vaccines.

Foreword
Preface
Contributors
1 Microbiology and Laboratory Diagnosis 1
2 Isolation, Culture, and Identification of Meningococci from Clinical Specimens 9
3 PCR Diagnosis 23
4 Detection of Meningococcal Antigen by Latex Agglutination 41
5 Meningococcal Serology 61
6 Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing 89
7 Molecular Approach for the Study of Penicillin Resistance in Neisseria meningitidis 107
8 Overview: Epidemiology, Surveillance and Population Biology 121
9 Serological Characterization 131
10 Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis 147
11 Nucleotide Sequencing of Antigen Genes of Neisseria meningitidis 157
12 Multi-Locus Sequence Typing 173
13 Capsular Operons 187
14 Molecular Analysis of the Meningococcal LPS Expression 203
15 Genome Sequencing and Annotation 215
16 Representational Difference Analysis 231
17 Managing Outbreaks: The Public Health Response 257
18 Global Trends in Meningococcal Disease 273
19 Epidemiology, Surveillance, and Population Biology: Carriage Studies 293
20 Surveillance of Meningococcal Disease in Europe 313
21 Global Surveillance for Meningococcal Disease 333
22 Epidemiology of Meningococcal Disease in North America 341
23 Computational Methods for Meningococcal Population Studies 357
24 Clinical Studies: An Overview 375
25 Clinical Scoring Systems in Meningococcal Disease 411
26 Quantitative Detection of Bacterial Lipopolysaccharides in Clinical Specimens 427
27 Isolation and Analysis of Radiolabeled Meningococcal Endotoxin 441
28 Cytokine Measurement In Vivo and In Vitro 459
29 Cytokine Bioassays 487
30 Molecular Analysis of Gene-Polymorphisms Affecting the Host Response to Infection 499
31 Coagulation Studies 513
32 Complement Pathways and Meningococcal Disease: Diagnostic Aspects 529
33 Evaluation of New Treatments for Meningococcal Disease 549
34 Studies on the Effect of Neisserial Porins on Apoptosis of Mammalian Cells 587
35 Molecular Recognition Mechanisms of Meningococci: Identifying Receptor-Ligand Pairs Involved in Microbe-Host Interactions 599
36 Experimental Nasopharyngeal Colonization by Neisseria meningitidis Using Explant Organ Culture 621
37 Invasion of the Central Nervous System by Neisseria meningitidis 635
38 Interactions of Meningococci with Endothelium 649
39 A Promoter Probe Plasmid Based on Green Fluorescent Protein: A Strategy for Studying Meningococcal Gene Expression 663
40 Signature Tagged Mutagenesis 679
Index 693