NESTED-POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION FOR THE DETECTION OF HELICOBACTER-PYLORI INFECTION WITH NOVEL PRIMERS DESIGNED BY SEQUENCE-ANALYSIS OF UREASE-A GENE IN CLINICALLY ISOLATED BACTERIAL STRAINS

We have established a highly sensitive semi-nested PCR assay for the d etection of H. pylori infection using gastric juice sampler, which can be aspirated with disposable nasogastric tubes. The primers targeting H. pylori urease A gene were designed based on tile sequence conserva tion analysis of sixteen H. pylori strains isolated from Japanese pati ents. The efficacy of the PCR assay, designated as the URA-PCR, was co nfirmed by in vitro and in vivo assessments. Its sensitivity was 97.5% in the gastric juice samples aspirated from forty patients with prove n H. pylori infection, and was significantly higher than that obtained with previously described PCR assays. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.