Development of Conventional and Real-Time Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification Assays for Detection of Chlamydophila pneumoniae in Respiratory Specimens

Isothermal nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) was applied to the detection of Chlamydophila pneumoniae 16S rRNA by using the NucliSens basic kit (bioMerieux, Boxtel, The Netherlands). The assay was originally developed as a conventional NASBA assay with electrochemiluminescence detection and was subsequently adapted to a real-time NASBA format by using a molecular beacon. C. pneumoniae RNA prepared from a plasmid construct was used to assess the analytical sensitivity of the assay. The sensitivity of the NASBA assay was 10 molecules of in vitro wild-type C. pneumoniae RNA and 0.1 inclusion-forming unit (IFU) of C. pneumoniae. In spiked respiratory specimens, the sensitivity of the C. pneumoniae NASBA assay varied between 0.1 and 1 IFU/100 μl sample, depending on the type of specimen. Finally, conventional and real-time NASBA were applied to respiratory specimens previously tested by PCR. A 100% concordance between the test results was obtained.