1. Evaluation of a new plate hybridization assay for the laboratory diagnosis of imported malaria in Italy.
- Author
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Calderaro A, Piccolo G, Zuelli C, Galati L, Ricci L, Perandin F, Dell'Anna ML, Arcangeletti MC, Medici MC, Manca N, Dettori G, and Chezzi C
- Subjects
- Animals, Electrophoresis, Agar Gel, Evaluation Studies as Topic, Humans, Malaria, Vivax diagnosis, Plasmodium malariae genetics, Plasmodium malariae isolation & purification, Plasmodium ovale genetics, Plasmodium ovale isolation & purification, Plasmodium vivax genetics, Plasmodium vivax isolation & purification, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Sensitivity and Specificity, Malaria, Falciparum diagnosis, Nucleic Acid Hybridization methods, Plasmodium falciparum genetics, Plasmodium falciparum isolation & purification
- Abstract
A new molecular diagnostic method "Malaria-IBRIDOGEN" (Amplimedical S.p.A.--Bioline Division, Turin, Italy) based on a plate-hybridization assay for the simultaneous detection and identification of human malaria parasites was evaluated in this study. A target DNA sequence of the plasmodial 18S ribosomal RNA gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and hybridized in microtiter wells with five biotinylated probes each specific for Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. malariae, P. ovale and the beta-globine human gene, respectively. Compared to the nested-PCR actually used in our laboratory for the molecular diagnosis of malaria, "Malaria-IBRIDOGEN" revealed an overall sensitivity of 100% (51/51) for the four human Plasmodium species testing 100 whole blood samples from people with malaria-like symptoms and fever. Specificity was 92% (45/49) considering four discordant samples as "false positive" by "Malaria-IBRIDOGEN". The assay showed a threshold of parasite density (detection limit) of 0.07 P. falciparum parasites/microliter, 0.15-1.5 P. vivax parasites/microliter, 0.3 P. malariae parasites/microliter and 0.4 P. ovale parasites/microliter of whole blood, respectively. This assay could be successfully applied to the laboratory diagnosis of malaria as a useful aid to microscopy.
- Published
- 2004