Ambient Stable Quantitative PCR Reagents for the Detection of Yersinia pestis
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases·
- DOI
- 10.1371/journal.pntd.0000629
- PMID
- 20231881
- PMCID
- PMC2834737
- OpenAlex
- W1970235149
- Study type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
Ambient-stable PCR reagents could support routine plague surveillance and rapid field response where cold-chain transport and immediate testing are needed, provided a real-time PCR instrument is available.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The study addresses whether real-time PCR reagents for detecting Yersinia pestis can be formulated to remain stable at room temperature for field-based surveillance and emergency response.
Study design
A laboratory-based methods development study evaluating vacuum-dried, carbohydrate-stabilized TaqMan real-time PCR reagents for thermostability and analytical performance, including spiked soil samples.
Population and setting
The work is bench-based, using Y. pestis template DNA and soil samples spiked with the EV76 vaccine strain; no human or animal populations were studied.
Main findings
Vacuum-dried PCR reagents retained functionality for at least 49 days at 37 °C with low template (10 copies/µL) and up to 79 days at higher concentrations. The assay detected down to 5 × 10^4 CFU per gram of Y. pestis-spiked soil using both 3a- and caf1-targeted assays.
Public-health relevance
Ambient-stable PCR reagents could support routine plague surveillance and rapid field response where cold-chain transport and immediate testing are needed, provided a real-time PCR instrument is available.
Important limitations
The summary is limited to the supplied single-article abstract/metadata; explicit study limitations (e.g., validation with clinical or environmental field isolates, limits of detection in complex matrices, or inter-laboratory reproducibility) were not stated in the abstract and require the original paper for decision-grade interpretation.
GIDS interpretation
The article contributes to discoverability of ambient-temperature diagnostic formats relevant to plague surveillance; the abstract alone does not connect the reagents to any live surveillance signal, and any such linkage would require corroborating operational data.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 10 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.