Nucleic Acid Probes in Clinical Microbiology

Abstract

The infectious disease applications of nucleic acid probe have been described. In addition, the basic procedures of nucleic acid probe technology have been discussed, as have the factors affecting implementation of probe technology in diagnostic laboratories. Despite the questions raised, nucleic acid probes will become part of the diagnostic laboratory in the near future. Commercial interests are developing and marketing new probes, reagents, and kits which will expedite the employment of this technology. High-volume reference laboratories will first use probes as part of a battery of tests which will include ELISA and monoclonal antibody methods. In all probability, probes will replace methods: that have proven to be ineffective, difficult, or costly such as culturing for some enteric pathogens and Legionella, that require long incubation periods, such as mycobacteria, or that have high costs and low yields, such as virology.

DNA probe technology for rapid detection of Haemophilus influenzae in clinical specimens

“…Another concern for the clinical laboratory is the use of radiolabeled probe as opposed to nonradioactive materials. As shown in other studies (18,22), we felt that the radiolabeled probe was superior to the biotinylated probe for the clarity of its positive signal, although the sensitivity seemed equivalent (Fig. 1B and C).…”

“…An alternative methodology to H. influenza antigen detection is the use of DNA probe technology. DNA probe tests can be very specific when made from highly conserved DNA regions (7,17,18,22). The specific detection of H. influenza (and H. aegyptius) with our DNA probe seemed to be due to a 15-kb BglII restriction fragment of DNA present in all strains tested (Fig.…”

New Approaches to the Detection of Microbial Plant Pathogens

“…There is still a possibility of cross-hybridization between the vector sequence and the target nucleic acids unless the vector sequence is removed. With cloned probes, short sequences are generally more strain specific while longer sequences are more sensitive (Zwadyk and Cooksey, 1987). Another type of probe is in vitro transcribed RNA from a transcription vector system, e.g.…”