New Lyme DNA Test

[tcmgpt13]

New DNA lyme test, the first of its kind to detect early lyme. It has been used in a Milford, Connecticut hospital for about a year. If lyme can be detected early enough then the consequences of the disease will be greatly reduced, even entirely eliminated:

Increased Sensitivity and Specificity of Borrelia burgdorferi 16S Ribosomal DNA Detection

1. Sin Hang Lee, MD,
2. Veronica S. Vigliotti, CMIAC,
3. Jessica S. Vigliotti,
4. William Jones and
5. Suri Pappu, MD

+ Author Affiliations

1.
From the Department of Pathology, Milford Hospital, Milford, CT

1. Address reprint request to Dr Lee: 300 Seaside Ave, Milford, CT 06460.

Abstract

The DNA of Borrelia burgdorferi spirochetes extracted by ammonium hydroxide was used as the template for nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the species-specific 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA). The primers were those well known to be specific for signature sequence amplification of the B burgdorferi sensu lato 16S ribosomal RNA gene. The positive 293-base-pair nested PCR amplicon was subjected to routine direct automated Sanger sequencing. A 50-base sequence excised randomly from the sequencing electrophoretogram between the 2 nested PCR primer binding sites was sufficient for the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) analysis to validate the B burgdorferi sensu lato 16S rDNA without a reasonable doubt. Nested PCR increased the sensitivity of DNA detection by 100- to 1,000-fold. DNA sequence validation based on BLAST algorithms using the GenBank database practically eliminates any possibility of false-positive results due to molecular misidentification. This technology may be a valuable supplement to the current serologic tests for Lyme disease.

Increased Sensitivity and Specificity of Borrelia burgdorferi 16S Ribosomal DNA Detection ? American Journal of Clinical Pathology