Research Projects

To determine the utility of various polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods in intra-ocular fluids for detecting the infectious genomes in the diagnosis of infectious endophthalmitis in terms of sensitivity and specificity. This prospective and consecutive analysis included a total of 326 intra-ocular fluids and four other ocular specimens that were submitted for the microbiological evaluation, which were obtained from 330 clinically diagnosed endophthalmitis patients presented between October 2012 and September 2015 at the tertiary eye care referral centre in South India. Part of the collected intra-ocular fluids were subjected to cultures and smears, and the remaining parts were utilized for five PCR uniplex, nested, semi-nested, multiplex and nested multiplex after extracting DNA, using universal eubacterial and Propionibacterium acnes speciesspecific primer sets targeting 16S rRNA gene in all bacteria and pan-fungal primers, targeting 28S rRNA gene in all fungi.