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Polymerase Chain Reaction: Basic Protocol Plus Troubleshooting and Optimization Strategies
Published on: May 22, 2012
Optimal Conditions for the Asymmetric Polymerase Chain Reaction for Detecting Food Pathogenic Bacteria Using a
Haruka Nagai1, Kanji Tomioka1, Shiro Okumura2
1Department of Biochemistry and Applied Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, Kurume College, 1-1-1 Komorino, Kurume, Fukuoka, 830-8555, Japan.
Abstract:
We have been developing quick and simple system for detecting food-poisoning bacteria using a combination of an asymmetric PCR and a portable surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. The system would be suitable for point-of-care detection of food-poisoning bacteria in the field of food industry. In this study, we established a novel method for quantifying the amplified forward (F) and reverse (R) chains of Staphylococcus aureus separately by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The concentration of single-stranded DNA amplicon excessively amplified, which is crucial for the system, could be calculated as the difference between those of the F- and R-chains. For the R-chain, a correction based on the F-chain concentration in the sample was used to obtain a more accurate value, because the determination of the R-chain concentration was affected by that of the coexisting F-chain. The concentration values were also determined by fluorescence imaging for electrophoresis gels of amplicons with FITC- or Cy5-conjugated primers, and they were in good agreement with the values by the HPLC. The measured concentration of the single-strand F-chain correlated well with the value of the SPR response against the probe that was a complementary sequence of the F-chain, immobilized on the sensor chip of the SPR sensor.
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