• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.194-201
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• 2016

Purpose: Monitoring pneumococcal carriage rates is important. We developed and evaluated the accuracy of a real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) protocol for the detection of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Methods: In October 2014, 157 nasopharyngeal aspirates were collected from patients aged <18 years admitted to Chung-Ang University Hospital. We developed and evaluated a real-time PCR method for detecting S. pneumoniae by comparing culture findings with the results of the real-time PCR using genomic DNA (gDNA). Of 157 samples, 20 specimens were analyzed in order to compare the results of cultures, real-time PCR, and real-time RT-PCR. Results: The concordance rate between culture findings and the results of real-time PCR was 0.922 (P<0.01, Fisher exact test). The 133 culture-negative samples were confirmed to be negative for S. pneumoniae using real-time PCR. Of the remaining 24 culture-positive samples, 21 were identified as S. pneumonia -positive using real-time PCR. The results of real-time RT-PCR and real-time PCR from 20 specimens were consistent with culture findings for all S. pneumoniae -positive samples except one. Culture and real-time RT-PCR required 26.5 and 4.5 hours to perform, respectively. Conclusions: This study established a real-time RT-PCR method for the detection of pneumococcal carriage in the nasopharynx. Real-time RT-PCR is an accurate, convenient, and time-saving method; therefore, it may be useful for collecting epidemiologic data regarding pneumococcal carriage in children.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.729-733
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• 2006

Cryptosporidium is a waterborne pathogenic parasite which causes diarrhea. Immunomagnetic separation-immunofluorescent assay (IMS-IFA) has been a widely adopted for Cryptosporidium detection as standard method. However, this method does not provide information about viability or infectivity of Cryptosporidium. Therefore, many researchers have studied viability or infectivity analyses of Cryptosporidium with various methods such as vital staining, in vitro excystation, RT-PCR, cell culture, and mouse infection assay. In this study, two direct RT-PCR methods, cell culture RT-PCR and cell culture IFA were compared for sensitivity and other characteristics. The results showed that direct RT-PCR method with HSP70 genes had the highest sensitivity with detection up to 1 viable cell of Cryptosporidium. The infectious Cryptosporidium were detected up to 10 to 25 cells by cell culture methods in combination with RT-PCR and IFA. The infectious Cryptosporidium were apt to be quantified by cell culture IFA.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2014

Norovirus causes acute gastroenteritis in all age groups and its food poisoning outbreaks are rapidly increasing in Korea. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is most widely used for the rapid detection of foodborne viruses due to high sensitivity. However, the false positive results of RT-PCR obtained against already inactivated viruses could be a serious drawbacks in food safety area. In this study, we investigated a method to yield true positive RT-PCR results only with alive viruses. To decompose the RNA genes from dead viruses, the enzymatic treatments composed of proteinse K and Ribonuclease A were applied to the sanitized and inactivated virus particles. Another aim of this study was to quantify the efficiencies of several major sanitizing treatments using real-time RT-PCR. Feline calicivirus (FCV) that belongs to the same Caliciviridae family with norovirus was used as a surrogate model for norovirus. The initial level of virus in control suspension was approximately $10^4$ PFU/mL. Most of inactivated viruses treated with the enzymatic treatment for 30 min at $37^{\circ}C$ were not detected in RT-PCR, Quantification results to verify the inactivation efficiencies of sanitizing treatments using real-time RT-PCR showed no false positive in most cases. We could successfully develope a numerical quantification process for the inactivated viruses after major sanitizing treatments using real-time RT-PCR. The results obtained in this study could provide a novel basis of rapid virus quantification in food safety area.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.251-257
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• 2001

Listeria monocytogenes and L. ivanovii are important food-pathogens for human and animal. The diagnostic of Listeria in food using culture medium requires time and laborwork, because there are many other non-pathogenic species like L. innocua, L welshimeri, L. seeligeri and L. grayi in Genus Listeria. For these reasons, Lismix multiplex PCR method was developed as a rapid method for the detection and identification of Listeria. In this study we developed a practical system of Lis-mix PCR detection for the application to food samples and new developed Siw-mix III PCR system overall 69 listerial strains were successful species-identified and confirmed. Also, the Siw-mix III PCR system allows the species-specific identification among L. ivanovii, L. welshimeri and L seeligeri in a single PCR.

• The Korean Journal of Mycology
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.103-107
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• 2016

To establish a rapid and accurate detection of Phytophthora pinifolia, which is a quarantine pathogenic fungus in Korea, a species-specific primer was developed based on the ras-related protein (Ypt1) gene. Species-specific primer based on the DNA sequences of Ypt1 gene amplified 193 bp polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product for P. pinifolia. The primer pair yielded the predicted PCR product size exactly in testing with target pathogen DNAs, but not from the other 10 species of Phytophthora and 14 species of other phytopathogenic fungi. The primer pair also showed only the species-specific amplification curve on realtime PCR on target pathogen DNA. The detection sensitivity of real time PCR using species-specific primer pair was 10 to 100 times higher than conventional PCR, with 1 to $10pg/{\mu}L$.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.299-306
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• 2009

Assay for the detection and quantification of porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV 2) with the real-time PCR were developed. TaqMan probe real-time using a set of primer/probe was developed for detection of PCV 2. In this study we applied real-time PCR assay to 320 samples, collected from pig farms. In 151 of 320 samples, PCV 2 DNA was detected by conventional PCR assay. All samples positive for PCV 2 DNA in conventional PCR assay were also positive in Real-time PCR assay, but 69 of 169 samples that tested negative for PCV 2 DNA in conventional assay were tested positive in TaqMan probe real-time PCR assay. The test of TaqMan probe real-time PCR resulted in detection and quantification limits of 101 copies per sample. TaqMan probe real-time PCR assay increased the number of samples in which PCV 2 was detected by 21%. TaqMan probe real-time PCR assay is very efficient method in contrast to the conventinal PCR, becoming increasingly important method for gene analysis.

• Journal of Mushroom
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.28-33
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• 2003

Pseudomonas tolaasii causing brown blotch disease was detected by PCR from water samples collected from the oyster mushroom cultivation farms to find the contamination level of the pathogen in water. Sixteen water samples (28.1%) contain less than 1,000 cfu, 31 samples (54.4%) contain 1,001-10,000 cfu, 6 samples (10.5%) contain 10,001-100,000 cfu, and 4 samples (7%) contain of bacteria per milliliter. P. tolaasii-specific DNA band was amplified in 3 samples (5.3%) by nested-PCR and in 20 samples (35.1%) by immunocapture (IC)-nested PCR respectively. These results suggest that IC-nested-PCR was much more sensitive than nested-PCR in detection of P. tolaasii and a quite few waters using for oyster mushroom cultivation were contaminated with P. tolaasii.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.53-57
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• 2004

Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) was a major pathogen of watermelon and had affected seriously to watermelon production in Korea. Rapid and sensitive detection method of CGMMV associated with bottle gourd (Lagenafia siceraria) seeds was developed by using RT-PCR in this study. A pair of primeri Wmfl and Wmrl, specific for CGMMV was designed from coat protein gene sequences of CGMMV-W and used for amplifying 420 bp product in RT-PCR. To simplify the virus extraction procedure and reduce an inhibitor from the extract for the RT-PCR, some methods using ethanol precipitation, double filtration, polyethylene glycol precipitation and phenol/chloroform/isoamyl alcohol extraction procedure were compared and the phenol/chloroform/isoamyl alcohol extraction procedure was selected by its enhanced sensitivity. This detection method using the selected extraction step and the primers for RT-PCR could reliably detect an infected level of one CGMMV-infested seed in 1,000 seeds. This rapid and sensitive RT-PCR assay provides auseful tool for the specific detection of CGMMV in bottle gourd seed samples containing high levels of back-ground inhibitors.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.1004-1007
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• 2014

Culture is the gold standard for diagnosis of tuberculosis, but it takes 6 to 8 weeks to confirm the result. This issue is complemented by the detection method using polymerase chain reaction, which is now widely used in a routine microbiology laboratory. In this study, we evaluated the performance of the Seegene Anyplex TB PCR to assess its diagnostic sensitivity and specificity, and compared its results with the Roche Cobas TaqMan MTB PCR, one of the most widely used assays in the world. Five university hospitals located in the Chungcheong area in South Korea participated in the study. A total of 1,167 respiratory specimens ordered for acid-fast bacilli staining and culture were collected for four months, analyzed via the Seegene Anyplex TB PCR, and its results were compared with the Roche Cobas TaqMan MTB PCR. For detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of the Anyplex TB PCR were 87.5% and 98.2% respectively, whereas those of the Cobas TaqMan were 92.0% and 98.0% respectively (p value > 0.05). For smear-positive specimens, the sensitivity of the Anyplex TB PCR was 95.2%, which was exactly the same as that of the Cobas TaqMan. For smear-negative specimens, the sensitivity of the Anyplex TB PCR was 69.2%, whereas that of the Cobas TaqMan TB PCR was 84.6%. For detection of MTB, the Seegene Anyplex TB PCR showed excellent diagnostic performance, and high sensitivity and specificity, which were comparable to the Roche Cobas TaqMan MTB PCR. In conclusion, the Anyplex TB PCR can be a useful diagnostic tool for the early detection of tuberculosis in clinical laboratories.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.99-103
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• 2015

Potato virus T (PVT) is a plant pathogen in the family Betaflexiviridae, group IV single-stranded positive sense RNA viruses. The major host of PVT is potato, and it has been reported in Ullucus tuberosus, Oxalis tuberosa and Tropaeolum tuberosum. This study aimed at developing reverse transcription (RT)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and nested PCR techniques for specific detection of PVT. Finally, Two RT-PCR primer sets were developed and verified. The RT-PCR products were amplified to 734 (PVT RT-PCR primer set 6) and 828 bp (PVT RT-PCR primer set 29) long to detect PVT. The nested PCR primer sets [PVT-N70/C20 ($734{\rightarrow}315bp$) and PVT-N75/C30 ($828{\rightarrow}529bp$)] were developed which are high sensitivity and verification for detection of PVT. Furthermore, a modified-positive control plasmid is use to verify contamination of laboratory in PVT detection. This study supported the diagnose PVT in potato or PVT related hosts.