Journal
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 42, Issue 6, Pages 2403-2410Publisher
AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY
DOI: 10.1128/JCM.42.6.2403-2410.2004
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Funding
- NIAID NIH HHS [AI-523213-01, R01 AI046919, AI-46919-01A2] Funding Source: Medline
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The diagnosis of infections caused by Plasmodium species is critical for understanding the nature of malarial disease, treatment efficacy, malaria control, and public health. The demands of field-based epidemiological studies of malaria will require faster and more sensitive diagnostic methods as new antimalarial drugs and vaccines are explored. We have developed a multiplex PCR-ligase detection reaction (LDR) assay that allows the simultaneous diagnosis of infection by all four parasite species causing malaria in humans. This assay exhibits sensitivity and specificity equal to those of other PCR-based assays, identifying all four human malaria parasite species at levels of parasitemias equal to 1 parasitized erythrocyte/mul of blood. The multiplex PCR-LDR assay goes beyond other PCR-based assays by reducing technical procedures and by detecting intraindividual differences in species-specific levels of parasitemia. Application of the multiplex PCR-LDR assay will provide the sensitivity and specificity expected of PCR-based diagnostic assays and will contribute new insight regarding relationships between the human malaria parasite species and the human host in future epidemiological studies.
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