Development and Evaluation of a Real-Time TaqMan-PCR for the Detection of Human Cytomegalovirus DNA in Bone Marrow Transplant Recipients

Introduction: cytomegalovirus (cmv) has been recognized as the most important viral pathogen in persons undergoing bone marrow transplantation (bmt). in this study, we present the development of a taqman-based real-time pcr assay to quantify human cytomegalovirus (cmv) dna in peripheral blood leukocytes (pbls) of bone marrow transplantation patients. materials and methods: a plasmid containing the target sequence from the pp65 region (ul83) of cmv was con- structed as a positive control template. serial dilutions of 107 to 101 plasmids per assay were prepared. peripheral blood samples were collected from patients after transplantation. cmv dna was quantified by rq-pcr in parallel with the pp65 antigenemia assay in pbl samples. results: the real-time pcr assay could detect cmv dna in patient's samples with a wide linear range, from 10 to over 107 copies of cmv. real-time pcr assay results correlated with those of the cmv pp65 antigenemia assay (p < 0.0001). discussion: the taqman assay may be a useful tool for rapid quantification of cmv infection and for monitoring of cmv reactivation in bone marrow transplantation recipients. the results of both quantitative assays were significantly correlated; however, the rq-pcr assay was more sensitive than the pp65 antigenemia assay.