Direct detection of microorganisms responsible for the sexually transmitted infection on the mobile real-time PCR device without treating in advance

ABSTRACT As WHO reported, four curable STIs-chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and trichomoniasis occur more than 1 million per each day globally almond 2016. For this reason, it is important to control these STIs, one of which is “to detect”. The general methods in order to detect STIs are nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs). One of the reasons why NAATs are utilized in many tests is that it is possibly to be more sensitive than other test. However, there needs to treat extraction of nucleic acids in advance and amplify specific regions by NAATs, and hence it must take much labour and much time. In this work, for Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) and Treponema pallidum (TP) which is each etiological agent of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis, we evaluate and propose “quicker and simpler” NAATs. Specifically, utilizing mobile real-time PCR device “PCR1100” and PCR reagent kit “KAPA3G Plant PCR Kit”, it was considered whether real-time direct PCR could be performed or not without treating DNA extraction in advance so-called “direct”. As a result, firstly, we established that real-time direct PCR could be performed in all of CT, NG, and TP, and moreover, each Ct value correlated with the concentration of each organism similarly to detection of genome DNA (each correlation coefficient R2 > 0.95). Moreover, each assay demonstrated a limit of detection (LOD) of the follows; CT was 10^0.86 = 7.24 IFU/reaction, NG was 10^-0.19 = 0.65 CFU/reaction, and TP was 10^1.4 = 25.1 organisms/reaction. However, it appeared the sensitivity was a little low, especially for CT and TP. Secondly, we found that even as without treating sample in advance, the time of detection was required more less 15 minutes at any of case, which was very quick compared with other current methods for real-time PCR. Additionally, compared with other commercial devices, it was easier to operate the PCR1100 device, for example, start, analysis of Ct value. In conclusion, the present study has demonstrated that it is possible for real-time direct PCR to perform with combination of the PCR1100 device and the PCR reagent kit in 3 kinds of microorganisms-CT, NG and TP. Furthermore, we propose “quicker and simpler” methods for NAATs, which it would not take labour and time. Further studies are needed in order to contribute to control STIs.