Evaluation of DNA extraction kits for molecular diagnosis of human Blastocystis subtypes from fecal samples

Blastocystis sp. is now recognized as one of the most common intestinal parasite in human fecal examinations. Recently, PCR-based diagnostic methods of Blastocystis infection using direct DNA extraction from fresh fecal samples with commercially available kits are reported. Several kits have been developed, but little has been done in comparing the detective sensitivity between PCR methods using the commercial kits. In this study, we compared the detective sensitivity among five commercially available kits (MagNA Pure LC DNA Isolation Kit I, Roche; QuickGene SP Kit DNA, FujiFilm; NucleoSpin Plant II, Macherey-Nagel; QIAamp DNA Stool Mini Kit, Qiagen; ZR Fecal DNA Kit, Zymo Research) and fecal culture method. In a preliminary test, the DNA isolated with two kits (FujiFilm and Macherey-Nagel) showed negative PCR, while the other three kits showed positive PCR. Then, DNA from 50 clinical samples that was Blastocystis-positive in the examination of fecal culture method were isolated with the three kits and 1.1 kbp SSU rRNA gene was detected with PCR. The positive rates of the three kits (Roche, Qiagen, and Zymo Research) were 10, 48 and 94%, respectively. The present study indicated that there is different detective sensitivity among the commercial kits, and fecal culture method is superior in detection rate and cost performance than DNA-elution kits for diagnosis of Blastocystis sp. subtypes.