Standing of nucleic acid testing strategies in veterinary diagnosis laboratories to uncover Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex members

Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences

Isabel eCouto¹  Ana eBotelho²  Pedro eCosta³  Miguel eViveiros³  Joao eInacio⁴ 

[1] Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa;Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (INIAV, IP);Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHMT/UNL);University of Brighton;

关键词: Mycobacterium bovis;    Tuberculosis;    Molecular diagnosis;    SWOT Analysis;    bovine tuberculosis;    Nucleic acid testing;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmolb.2014.00016

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Nucleic acid testing (NAT) designate any molecular approach used for the detection, identification and characterization of pathogenic microorganisms, enabling the rapid, specific and sensitive diagnostic of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis. These assays have been widely used since the 90´s of the last century in human clinical laboratories and, subsequently, also in veterinary diagnostics. Most NAT strategies are based in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and its several enhancements and variations. From the conventional PCR, real-time PCR and its combinations, isothermal DNA amplification, to the nanotechnologies, here we review how the NAT assays have been applied to decipher if and which member of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex is present in a clinical sample. Recent advances in DNA sequencing also brought new challenges and have made possible to generate rapidly and at a low cost, large amounts of sequence data. This revolution with the high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies makes whole genome sequencing (WGS) and metagenomics the trendiest NAT strategies, today. The ranking of NAT techniques in the field of clinical diagnostics is rising, and we provide a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis with our view of the use of molecular diagnosis for detecting tuberculosis in veterinary laboratories, notwithstanding the gold standard being still the classical culture of the agent. The complementary use of both classical and molecular diagnosis approaches is recommended to speed the diagnostic, enabling a fast decision by competent authorities and rapid tackling of the disease.

【 授权许可】

Unknown