Figure 4

A: Hybridisation signals of E. coli isolated from whole blood. Despite the great background of human DNA in blood no interference (non-specific signals would be displayed in black) were observed. These results prove the high specificity of the protocol for clinical pathogens. Specific signals are shown as grey and positive controls as white bars. B: Isolation of bacterial DNA from blood spiked with E. coli and P. mirabilis, simulating a multi-microbial infection. It clearly shows the possibility of parallel detection of different microbes even from one human blood sample. Abbreviations of probe names are listed in table 1. Grey, black and white bars represent specific and non-specific signals as well as positive controls. These figures only display intensities of spot signals which were flagged positive automatically by the GenePix Software. However for statistical analysis all (both negative and positive flagged) signals were evaluated. Results were controlled by visual inspection of image files.