The method can be easily applied in practice because samples can be stored at room temperature (22 to 26°C) for 4 d.
First, because samples can be fixed prior to slide preparation without loss of fluorescence, microscopy could be performed at a central facility serving nearby communities, even though this would extend the total time to obtain assay results.
Storage of freeze dried samples also reduces costs because samples can be kept at room temperature in a desiccator.
Of course, animal models have a huge advantage compared with humans because samples can be taken from any tissue or time point in the disease course.
MirrIR slides, glass slides with reflective multilayer coating (Ag/SnO2), are especially popular because samples can be examined by conventional light microscopy in transmission and then scanned by IR in reflection mode.
There are no constraints on timing, because samples can be held at many points for as long as necessary with no adverse effects, including the initial fixative stage and the final staining stage.
Although normalization operations manipulate the distribution of values from each sample, tests of distribution similarity between technical replicates(for example the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test used by Maksimovic et al[ 6]) are also potentially misleading because samples can be identically distributed but uncorrelated.
Strong differences may exist between women, e.g. on average only 30% of the women carry L. crispatus, differences between Caucasian and black women have been reported [ 32], and differences may be present for each woman because samples can be taken during different phases of the menstrual cycle.
However, partial genomic data are less than optimal because gene sampling can be misleading in virus genomes containing genes of different origins, as exemplified in the Glossina pallidipes salivary gland hypertrophy virus (SHGV; [30]).
More differentiation within families and reduction of co-selection of sibs are expected with genomic-assisted selection because Mendelian sampling can be better estimated.
