Fig. 7From: Development of a novel mycobiome diagnostic for fungal infectionAbsolute quantification of Aspergillus fumigatus using internal plasmid control PC1. A. Clinical respiratory samples were spiked with four different amounts of A. fumigatus (A. f) genome equivalents (GE) to generate a standard curve ranging from ˜ 3 to 1000 GE per PCR. Read counts from the internal plasmid control (PC) were used to normalize (A) f counts and a positive linear relationship (R2 = 0.89) with spiked GE was observed. (B) Using the linear model generated by the standard curve, A. f GE were estimated in 12 clinical respiratory samples known to be positive for A. f (plus one negative control sample containing no A. f). Estimated A. f GE for test samples were calibrated using the estimated A. f GE value of the negative control sample. The estimated A. f GE values displayed strong correlation (Spearman’s rank-order correlation; r [11] 0.78, p < 0.01) with known GE (calculated by rRNA qPCR)Back to article page