Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Best PCR tests to detect canine leishmaniasis from eye swabs
By Pilatti, Marcia Maria et al.·Published in Research in veterinary science·2009·Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear, Brazil·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Comparison of PCR methods for diagnosis of canine visceral leishmaniasis in conjunctival swab samples.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of dogs suspected of having leishmaniasis, a disease caused by a parasite, were tested using different lab techniques on samples taken from their eyes. Two specific tests were found to be the most effective, detecting the parasite in nearly all the dogs tested. These methods showed a much higher success rate compared to the others. The results can help veterinarians choose the best testing method for diagnosing this serious condition in dogs.
People also search for: dog eye infection leishmaniasis · canine leishmaniasis symptoms · best test for dog leishmaniasis
Abstract
Four PCR assays for detection of Leishmania DNA in conjunctival swab samples were compared. All methods had two steps: a first amplification followed by hybridization or by a new amplification (nested or seminested). Two methods (kDNA PCR-hybridization and kDNA snPCR) used primers targeted to the minicircles of kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) and the other two methods to the coding (LnPCR) and intergenic noncoding regions (ITS-1 nPCR) of ribosomal rRNA genes. kDNA PCR-hybridization was positive for 22/23 dogs (95.6%) and for 40/46 samples (86.9%), considering the right and the left conjunctivas. kDNA snPCR was positive for 21/23 dogs (91.3%) and for 40/46 samples (86.9%). The ITS-1 nPCR and LnPCR were both able to detect the parasites in 17/23 dogs (73.9%) and 29/46 (63%) and 30/46 (65.2%) samples, respectively. The positivities of the kDNA based methods were significantly higher; however the choice of the best method will depend on the kind of information required with the diagnosis.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19298988/