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Updated: Feb 25, 2026

Methods to Increase the Sensitivity of High Resolution Melting Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Genotyping in Malaria
Published on: November 10, 2015
Plasmid-based high-resolution melting analysis for accurate detection of rpoB mutations in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
El Mehdi Bentaleb1,2, My Driss El Messaoudi3, Mohammed Abid4
1Medical Biotechnology Center, Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation and Research (MAScIR), Rabat Design Center, Avenue Mohamed El Jazouli - Madinat Al Irfane, 10100, Rabat, Morocco.
Background:
Rapid diagnosis of drug resistance in tuberculosis (TB) is pivotal for the timely initiation of effective antibiotic treatment to prevent the spread of drug-resistant strains. The development of low-cost, rapid and robust methods for drug-resistant TB detection is highly desirable for resource-limited settings.
Methods:
We report the use of an in house plasmid-based quantitative polymerase chain reaction-high-resolution melting (qPCR-HRM) analysis for the detection of mutations related to rifampicin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) in clinical isolates from Moroccan patients. Five recombinant plasmids containing predominant mutations (S531L, S531W, H526Y and D516V) and the wild-type sequence of the Rifampicin Resistance-Determining Region (RRDR) have been used as controls to screen 45 rifampicin-resistant and 22 rifampicin-susceptible MTB isolates.
Results:
The sensitivity and the specificity of the qPCR-HRM analysis were 88.8% and 100% respectively as compared to rifampicin Drug Susceptibility Testing (DST). The results of qPCR-HRM and DNA sequencing had a concordance of 100%.
Conclusion:
Our qPCR-HRM assay is a sensitive, accurate and cost-effective assay for the high-throughput screening of mutation-based drug resistance in TB reference laboratories.

