Abstract: The invention provides a method for identifying a neonatal subject at risk for NEC, said method comprising (a) profiling the microbiota in a sample from the GI tract of said subject prior to a conclusive diagnosis of NEC and/or prior to full onset of NEC, (b1) comparing said profile to a standard microbiota profile obtained from corresponding samples from neonatal subjects with NEC or subjects which later developed NEC and determining the degree of correlation between said profile and the standard profile(s), and/or (b2) comparing said profile to a standard microbiota profile obtained from corresponding samples from neonatal subjects which did not develop NEC and determining the degree of correlation between said profile and the standard profile, and (c) identifying the subject as being at risk of NEC if significant correlation is observed in (b1) and/or significant correlation is not seen in (b2).

Abstract: The invention provides a method for identifying a neonatal subject at risk for NEC, said method comprising (a) profiling the microbiota in a sample from the GI tract of said subject prior to a conclusive diagnosis of NEC and/or prior to full onset of NEC, (b1) comparing said profile to a standard microbiota profile obtained from corresponding samples from neonatal subjects with NEC or subjects which later developed NEC and determining the degree of correlation between said profile and the standard profile(s), and/or (b2) comparing said profile to a standard microbiota profile obtained from corresponding samples from neonatal subjects which did not develop NEC and determining the degree of correlation between said profile and the standard profile, and (c) identifying the subject as being at risk of NEC if significant correlation is observed in (b1) and/or significant correlation is not seen in (b2).

Abstract: The present invention relates to methods of producing peptide or protein expression libraries. In such a library, a population of nucleotide sequences is expressed. The resulting peptides or proteins encoded by those nucleotide sequences are then screened to identify those peptides or proteins having a desired property such as the ability to bind a selected ligand. In the construction and screening of such libraries, it is desired to ensure that the nucleotide encoding a particular protein remains connected in some way with that protein so that once a desired protein having a selected property has been isolated, its encoding nucleotide sequence may be specifically recovered for subsequent manipulation for example using PCR or sequencing. The present invention makes use of a property not previously described in constructing an expression library namely the use of proteins which covalently bind DNA.