Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Genetic Markers of Mycobacteria for Assessing the Disinfection Quality by Viability Real Time PCR

Abstract

© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. The research was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of genetic markers when assessing the vitality of mycobacteria after room disinfection as a disinfection quality parameter. To achieve this goal, the mycobacterial genome was analyzed, and genetic markers identifying mycobacteria and marker mycobacterial products with the shortest lifetime after a mycobacterial cell dies were sought for. A room where animals were experimentally infected with mycobacteria was examined. Mycobacterium and the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex DNA markers can be detected in one tube in CY5 and R6G channels. To differentiate Mycobacterium bovis BCG and the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, DNA deletion was detected using ROX- and R6G-labeled PCR probes. The comparison of genetic identification and mycobacterial vitality evaluation results with those of bacteriological tests completely confirm the effectiveness of genetic detection of mycobacterial viability. This approach to evaluate the disinfection quality makes it possible to avoid false-positive (using classic PCR) and false-negative (using bacteriologic culturing) results when controlling the tuberculosis causative agents.