Human Cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease presents a significant complication for managing allogeneic bone marrow and stem cell transplantation patients. Early detection and close monitoring of CMV infections is important for the preemptive antiviral therapy of recipients of seropositive donor transplants. Currently real-time PCR is the method of choice for quantification of CMV in the clinical setting. A reliable and robust DNA isolation system is a very important part of the CMV testing. The aim of this study is to evaluate the Beckman SPRI-TE™ nucleic acid isolation system (currently under development) for the quantitative real-time PCR detection of CMV.
DNA from total of 67 whole blood samples was extracted using the Beckman SPRI-TE™ nucleic acid isolation system (Beckman Coulter, Fullerton, CA). An in-house developed, real-time quantitative PCR for CMV was performed. Results were compared to those obtained using DNA extracted with Qiagen BioRobot® EZ1 (Qiagen, Valencia, CA). There was complete concordance for the qualitative results between the two methods. The quantitative results also show a good correlation between the two methods. No inhibition was observed with the DNA extracted with the Beckman SPRI-TE™ system.
Beckman SPRI-TE™ nucleic acid isolation system is an easy to use automated system with the flexibility of 1 – 10 samples per run. Pre-packaged reagent cartridges are convenient to use and reduce the potential for sample cross-contamination. The variable sample throughput make the SPRI-TE™ system highly suited for the hospital-based clinical laboratories.
