Sean C Murphy, Jennifer L Prentice, Kathryn Williamson, Carolyn K Wallis, Ferric C Fang, Michal Fried, Cris Pinzon, Ruobing Wang, Angela K Talley, Stefan H I Kappe, Patrick E Duffy, Brad T Cookson
To detect pre-patent parasitemia, we developed a real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) for the asexual 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNAs) of Plasmodium falciparum. Total nucleic acids extracted from whole blood were combined with control RNA and tested by qRT-PCR. The assay quantified > 98.7% of parasite-containing samples to ±0.5 log(10) parasites/mL of the nominal value without false positives. The analytical sensitivity was ≥ 20 parasites/mL. The coefficient of variation was 0...
March 2012: American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene