Erschienen:
American Society for Microbiology, 2011
Erschienen in:
Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 49 (2011) 7, Seite 2485-2489
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.1128/jcm.00452-11
ISSN:
0095-1137;
1098-660X
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Beschreibung:
ABSTRACTThe systemic symptoms of diphtheria are caused by thetox-encoded diphtheria toxin (DT) which is produced by toxigenicCorynebacteriumspp. Besides the classical agentC. diphtheriae, the zoonotic pathogenC. ulceranshas increasingly been reported as an emerging pathogen for diphtheria. The reliable detection of toxigenicCorynebacteriumspp. is of substantial importance for both diphtheria surveillance in the public health sector and the clinical workup of a patient with diphtherialike symptoms. Since the respectivetoxgenes ofC. diphtheriaeandC. ulceransdiffer from each other in both DNA and amino acid sequence, bothtoxgenes should be covered by novel real-time PCR methods. We describe the development and validation of a LightCycler PCR assay which reliably recognizestoxgenes from bothC. diphtheriaeandC. ulceransand differentiates the respective target genes by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) hybridization probe melting curve analysis.