Direct Polymerase Chain Reaction: Alternative Diagnostic Method for Diagnosis of Diphtheria Rapidly, Easily and Cost Effective

Some diseases require immediate and appropriate treatment to decrease the fatality risk patients incident, for example diphtheria. Time to help patients is very crucial since delay of therapy may increase the mortality cases up to 20 times. In other hands, conventional diagnostic methods (the gold standard) for diagnosis of diphtheria is time consuming and laborious. Therefore, an alternative diagnostic method which is rapid, easy and inexpensive is needed. In this case, direct PCR has been proved to reduce time and cost in laboratory examination. This study aimed to develop direct PCR as alternative diagnostic method for diagnosis of diphtheria rapidly, easily, and inexpensive. Fifteen samples include 10 isolates of Corynebacterium diphtheriae (toxigenic) and 3 isolates of Corynebacterium non- diphtheriae (nontoxigenic) and 2 clinical specimens (throat swab) was examined by performing direct PCR method and a standard PCR method was used for optimizing the protocols. Result showed that direct PCR can be used to amplify target genes correctly as well as standard PCR. All of C. diphtheriae samples showed bands at 168 bp (dtxR gene marker) and 551 bp (tox gene marker) while no band appeared in others. Direct PCR detected at least 71 CFU/uL of bacterial cells in samples. We concluded that direct PCR can be used for alternative diagnostic method for diagnosis of diphtheria which is rapid, easy and cost effective.