Abstract

ARRAIZ, Nailet; ROMAY, Zolay; FARIA, Nelba  and  MUJICA, Dámaso. Differential Identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis Clinical Isolates by Multiplex PCR Assay. Rev. Cient. (Maracaibo) [online]. 2006, vol.16, n.6, pp.622-628. ISSN 0798-2259.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causal agent of tuberculosis in humans, however, the zoonotic transmission of Mycobacterium bovis from animals to humans, mainly immunocompromised individuals, is of great impact in public health. The necessity to design rapid and precise methods to differentiate between M. tuberculosis and M. bovis has lead to the development of strategies of genotypic identification. The aim of this study was to evaluate the discriminatory power of a multiplex PCR assay to differentiate between M. tuberculosis and M. bovis clinical isolates. Conditions for simultaneous amplification with oligonucleótidos targeted Rv0577 and Rv1510 genes sequences were standardized. Rv0577 is specific of M. tuberculosis complex mycobacteria and Rv1510 is located in polymorphic regions (RD4) of the mycobacterial genome of M. tuberculosis complex, but is absent in M. bovis and M. bovis BCG, allowing to differentiate between M. tuberculosis complex strains. To evaluate the specificity of the PCR assay, 46 clinical isolates were analyzed. The amplicon from Rv0577 gene was detected in all of the clinical isolates from M. tuberculosis complex, whereas the 1033 pb product from Rv1510 (RD4), was exclusively observed in M. tuberculosis and was absent in M. bovis and M. bovis BCG, showing the specificity of this PCR assay to identify mycobacteria of the M. tuberculosis complex and to differentiate between M. tuberculosis and M. bovis in a single-step assay. This multiplex PCR assay can be applied to the identification and differentiation of mycobacteria of M. tuberculosis complex in clinical samples, to the quality control of products derived from animals with infection suspicions and to develop studies on great scale of zoonotic transmission of M. bovis in susceptible populations

Keywords : M. tuberculosis; M. bovis; multiplex PCR; Rv1510, RD4, Rv0577.