FIG. 3.

PCR amplification of bacteriophage DNA. Water from inside and outside of punctured gloves was sampled and serially diluted 10-fold. The titers in each of the dilutions were then determined by plate counting, and the dilutions were used as templates in the PCRs. The numbers above each lane indicate the numbers of PFU per microliter in each dilution; the left-most lane contains undiluted sample. One microliter of each dilution was used as the template for PCR. Data are representative of those for six to eight gloves for each type of glove material. Complete data for the experiment are summarized in Table 1. As a percentage of the total number of phage inside each glove, more bacteriophage were found to have leaked from punctured synthetic gloves than from latex gloves. PVC, polyvinyl chloride.