Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 5, 2026

Imaging Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Mice with Reporter Enzyme Fluorescence
Published on: February 26, 2018
[Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex in paraffin-embedded tissues by real-time fluorescent quantitative
1Department of Pathology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Objective:
To investigate the feasibility of real-time fluorescent quantitative (qPCR) assay in detecting mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTB) in paraffin embedded tissues for diagnostic purpose.
Methods:
Using qPCR assay, 1000 consecutive formalin-fixed and paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues (from 2011 to 2012) suspected of MTB infection were tested by amplifying the MTB specific insertion sequence 6110 (IS6110). The specificity of the PCR product was confirmed by Sanger sequencing as compared with the MTB genomic DNA of the IS6110 sequence. Tissues with Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining were used as control.
Results:
In the 1000 samples, 513 were positive for mycobacterium by Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining (detection rate 51.3%); whereas 546 were MTB positive by qPCR assay (detection rate 54.6%). Concordance rate for both assays was 73.1%. The diagnosis rate increased by 14.4% by combinination of Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining and qPCR results. More interestingly, by analyzing the Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining and qPCR results three cases of M.leprae infection and four cases of non-tuberculous Mycobacterium (NTM) infection were identified.
Conclusions:
qPCR detection of MTB in FFPE tissue is more sensitive than Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining assay. Combination of these two assays can increase the detection rate and also identify some rare cases of NTM infection.
More Related Videos
07:42A Novel Microdissection Approach to Recovering Mycobacterium tuberculosis Specific Transcripts from Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded Lung Granulomas
Published on: June 5, 2014
06:26Author Spotlight: Optimizing CFU Determination for Efficient Assessment of TB Vaccine Efficacy and Antigen Presentation Analysis
Published on: July 28, 2023
Related Concept Videos
Real Time RT-PCR
The real-time quantification of the number of amplified products is...
Pulmonary Tuberculosis IV
Several diagnostic approaches are used to detect TB. The conventional method is the Tuberculin Skin Test (TST), also known as the Mantoux test. However, this method has...