Development of a competitor DNA template of the 38 kDa gene for molecular quantification of M. tuberculosis

The molecular quantification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) from clinical samples can improve the management of TB. Competitive polymerase chain reaction (C-PCR) is an accepted technique often used for this purpose, and IS6110 is the most popular target in such studies. As the number of these elements varies from 0 to 16 in clinical isolates, it is prone to give inconsistent results. A simple PCR-based approach is described in this study to generate a novel competitor for a single copy 38 kDa gene for the development of C-PCR for the quantification of the M. tuberculosis genome.