Universal conventional and real-time PCR diagnosis tools for Sarcoptes scabiei

Background: the mite sarcoptes scabiei has a known host-range of over 100 mammal species including humans. one of the prime objectives of the sarcoptes-world molecular network (wmn) is to design and develop universal sarcoptes pcr-based diagnosis methods. methods: we describe here for the first time two universal mitochondrial-based diagnosis methods: (i) conventional end-point pcr and (ii) taqman real-time pcr. the design of both of these universal diagnosis methods was based on sarcoptes samples collected from 23 host species in 14 countries. results: these methods,based on skin scrapings,were successfully used to etiologically confirm the diagnosis of different clinical degrees of sarcoptic mange in 48 animals belonging to six species. these universal pcr-based diagnosis methods are highly specific,technically sensitive and simple,and are based on the amplification of 135 bp from the mitochondrial 16s rdna. the method based on taqman real-time qpcr was more sensitive than the conventional end-point pcr. conclusions: two universal pcr-based diagnosis methods for s. scabiei were successfully designed and applied; one based on conventional end-point pcr and the other on taqman real-time pcr. we recommend further testing and the application of these new universal methods worldwide. © 2015 angelone-alasaad et al.