Detection of Mycobacterium bovis in tissues by polymerase chain reaction

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test was developed to detect Mycobacterium bovis in tissues. The test was based on amplification of a 248 bp segment of the insertion sequence, IS1081, present in six copies in strains of M. bovis and other members of the tuberculosis complex. The procedure involved digestion with proteinase K, lysis with sodium dodecyl sulphate, and extraction with hexadecyl tetramethyl ammonium bromide and phenol:chloroform:iso-amyl alcohol. When agarose gel electrophoresis was used for detection, the method was able to detect 1 fg of pure DNA, or 0.2 genome equivalents. It could also detect as few as 10 organisms from pure cultures and between 200-500 organisms from tissues spiked with cultured organisms. Detection by hybridization was only marginally more sensitive. The method was tested on 110 selected tissues recovered post mortem from a variety of animals. Fifty three of 58 samples diagnosed as M. bovis culture positive, including all samples containing microscopically visible acid-fast bacilli, were positive on duplicate testing by PCR. Five of 52 culture negative samples were also positive by PCR including three which contained large numbers of acid-fast organisms. Ten of the culture negative samples came from animals in a herd known to be free of bovine tuberculosis and all these were negative by PCR.