A FLUOROMETRIC TECHNIQUE FOR THE IN VITRO MEASUREMENT OF GROWTH AND VIABILITY IN QUAHOG PARASITE UNKNOWN (QPX)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Quahog parasite unknown (QPX) is a protistan parasite that causes significant mortalities among hard clams, Mercenaria mercenaria, in the northeastern United States and Canada. This pathogen has been successfully isolated from clams from different geographic locations, and in vitro cultures are being used in investigations of the parasite's genetic makeup, virulence and environmental tolerances. Many of these investigations require an easily reproducible, quantitative method to rapidly measure QPX cell viability and proliferation. Therefore, a fluorometric microplate technique was developed using fluorescein diacetate (FDA) as an indicator of cell viability. The developed technique provides a good estimate of the biovolume of live QPX cells. Fluorescent signals are correlated with the number and the size of individual QPX cells. Optimal experimental conditions included an FDA concentration range of 30–50 μM with an incubation period of 15–30 min in the dark. This FDA assay was used to investigate the dynamics of in vitro growth of QPX. Results showed that the growth dynamic is different among QPX isolates. For instance, exponential growth lasted for 1 week in two QPX isolates cultured from clams collected from New York and Massachusetts; whereas a third isolate (from New York) grew exponentially during 2 weeks under similar experimental conditions. While there are limitations to in vitro studies that must be recognized, research using cultured QPX cells is indispensable and will probably lead to significant progress in our knowledge of the biology and physiology of this parasite.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".