Polymerase chain reaction for diagnosis of infectious diseases

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been utilized and demonstrated to be useful for detecting minute amounts of a wide variety of infectious agents. In such studies, one must keep in mind that the most appropriate conditions for amplification vary with organisms of interest. In this study, PCR was used as a rapid and sensitive method for detecting infectious agents for which three assay systems were devised comprising the method for the amplification of human T cell leukemia virus type I, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The possibility of vertical transmission of human T cell leukemia virus type I through cord blood was demonstrated using cord blood mononuclear cells from carrier mothers of this virus. In the study of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, PCR was shown to be efficient, particularly in detecting this organism in extrapulmonary cases. Evidence of direct invasion into the central nervous system by Mycoplasma pneumoniae and the concomitant occurrence of mycoplasmaemia in the mycoplasmal central nervous system involvement was obtained using PCR. These results validated the potential of PCR in the clinical research of infectious diseases.