The Korean Journal of Laboratory Medicine  2006;26(1):9-13

doi:10.3343/kjlm.2006.26.1.9

Detection of Enterovirus in Cerebrospinal Fluid by Real-Time Nested Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction.

Se Ran HEO 1 ; Sun Kyung JIN ; Ho Eun CHANG ; Kyoung Un PARK ; Junghan SONG ; Eui Chong KIM

Affiliations

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Keywords

Enterovirus; Real-time polymerase chain reaction; Nested PCR; Reverse Transcription PCR; Aseptic meningitis

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Enterovirus is a common cause of aseptic meningitis, respiratory disease and nonspecific febrile illness. The conventional methods for laboratory diagnosis of enterovirus infections have been virus culture and serotyping by an immunofluorecent test. We studied a new and more rapid approach for enterovirus detection in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by real-time nested PCR. METHODS: This study was performed on 50 CSF specimens from patients suspected of aseptic meningitis. Enterovirus was detected in CSF by PCRs for 3 different targets and real-time nested PCR. Enterovirus culture was also performed in 44 CSF specimens. RESULTS: The positive rate of PCRs for each of the 3 different targets was 26.0%, 40.0%, or 46.0%, and that of real-time nested PCR was 86.0%. Only 6.8% were positive in culture. Thus, the positive rate of real-time nested PCR was much higher than other methods. CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed that the real-time nested PCR should be useful for diagnosis of enterovirus infections because of a high sensitivity and rapid detection.