Published in:
Open Access 01-12-2010 | Research article
Comparison of commercial DNA preparation kits for the detection of Brucellae in tissue using quantitative real-time PCR
Published in: BMC Infectious Diseases | Issue 1/2010
Login to get accessAbstract
Background
The detection of Brucellae in tissue specimens using PCR assays is difficult because the amount of bacteria is usually low. Therefore, optimised DNA extraction methods are critical. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of commercial kits for the extraction of Brucella DNA.
Methods
Five kits were evaluated using clinical specimens: QIAamp™ DNA Mini Kit (QIAGEN), peqGold™ Tissue DNA Mini Kit (PeqLab), UltraClean™ Tissue and Cells DNA Isolation Kit (MoBio), DNA Isolation Kit for Cells and Tissues (Roche), and NucleoSpin™ Tissue (Macherey-Nagel). DNA yield was determined using a quantitative real-time PCR assay targeting IS711 that included an internal amplification control.
Results
Kits of QIAGEN and Roche provided the highest amount of DNA, Macherey-Nagel and Peqlab products were intermediate whereas MoBio yielded the lowest amount of DNA. Differences were significant (p < 0.05) and of diagnostic relevance. Sample volume, elution volume, and processing time were also compared.
Conclusions
We observed differences in DNA yield as high as two orders of magnitude for some samples between the best and the worst DNA extraction kits and inhibition was observed occasionally. This indicates that DNA purification may be more relevant than expected when the amount of DNA in tissue is very low.