Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8507409 | Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases | 2018 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
The first step revealed a high specificity and sensitivity, allowing the detection of as low as 20 genome equivalents (GE) of B. burgdorferi s.l. from isolated cultures, clinical samples and ticks. The second step revealed high specificity, but a slightly lower sensitivity (2Â ÃÂ 102 GE) for detection of B. afzelii, B. garinii, B. burgdorferi s.s. and B. lusitaniae in purified DNA extracts, and particularly when testing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples. Nonetheless, both real-time PCR protocols were developed to be applied at the beginning of the infection, to improve early diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis (LB), where detection of Borrelia should not rely on the use of CSF samples. The assay here described is of special interest for the analysis of both environmental and clinical samples, being advantageous in the former phase screening of Lyme borreliosis, when the efficiency of serologically based diagnoses may be seriously compromised.
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Authors
Mónica Nunes, Ricardo Parreira, Teresa Carreira, João Inácio, Maria LuÃsa Vieira,