DETECTION OF MYCOBACTERIUM-LEPRAE BY 3-PRIMER PCR

Recently, polymerase chain reaction has been introduced for the specie s-specific assessment of Mycobacterium leprae (1). To avoid Southern b lotting techniques using radioactively labelled oligonucleotide probes , the aim of this study was to establish a three primer-based single-s tep PCR technique. Using primers designed for this purpose we amplifie d a part of the gene encoding for the 16S ribosomal RNA of slowly grow ing mycobacteria. Due to the species-specific antisense primer a secon d, smaller fragment specific for M. leprae was amplified. Our results show that the employment of a second antisense primer in the PCR may b e a substitution for Southern blot hybridization.