Detection of Brucella spp. DNA in patients serum samples by real-time PCR

Objective In this article we evaluated the sensitivities and specificities of real-time PCR assay for diagnosis of human brucellosis. Methods The species selectivity and specificity of real-time PCR were evaluated by direct amplification of a 169 bp portion of bcsp31 gene from 15 Brucella strains and 41 non-Brucella strains. According to the monitoring results of 2012 Harbin brucellosis, 17 brucellosis patients and 30 health people were selected to collect their serum samples for assessing the sensitivity of real-time PCR, and additional 30 non-brucellosis patients serum samples were as controls. Results The species selectivity and specificity of our real-time PCR method were evaluated by using genomic DNA from 15 Brucella strains and 41 non-Brucella strains. There were 11 sera with positive amplification signals among the 17 culture-proven brucellosis patients, the sensitivity was 64.7% (11/17). Whereas, the results of sera from the 60 control patients were all negative, corresponding to a specificity of 100.0%. Conclusion The results indicate that real-time PCR is well suitable for confirmation of brucellosis cases. Key words: Real-time PCR; Brucellosis; DNA