Forty-four previously characterized strains of Haemophilus influenzae were used to evaluate the specificity of previously published SNP PCR primers for the detection of the N526K substitution in PBP3 of BLNAR isolates using real-time PCR. Hasegawa et al. primers that amplify strains without a substitution at 526 and fail to amplify strains with N526K were 100% sensitive and specific for detecting N526K. However, primer sets of Hasegawa et al. and Nakamura et al. designed to amplify strains with N526K, but not strains without a substitution, were unable to do this reliably because the primers were specific for N526K encoded by AAG and failed to amplify strains with N526K encoded by AAA. A review of N526K strains deposited on GenBank revealed an even distribution of AAG and AAA codons for N526K in European and Australian BLNAR strains, whereas only the AAG codon was seen in Japanese strains. The exclusive presence of the AAG codon in Japanese strains appears to be independent of the use of the SNP PCR primers evaluated here and remains unexplained.
Funding
Clifford Craig Foundation
History
Publication title
Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy
Volume
18
Issue
4
Pagination
451-455
ISSN
1341-321X
Department/School
School of Health Sciences
Publisher
Springer Japan KK
Place of publication
1-11-11 Kudan-kita, Tokyo, 102-0073 Japan
Rights statement
Copyright 2011 Japanese Society of Chemotherapy and The Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases