Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology – Measuring or testing process involving enzymes or... – Involving nucleic acid
Patent
1995-09-11
1998-08-11
Myers, Carla J.
Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology
Measuring or testing process involving enzymes or...
Involving nucleic acid
435 912, 536 237, 536 2431, 536 2433, 935 8, 935 78, C12Q 168, C12P 1934, C07H 2104
Patent
active
057926093
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a nucleotide fragment specific for an ovale malaria parasite (Plasmodium ovale) and/or a quartan malaria parasite (Plasmodium malariae) and a method of detecting a falciparum malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum), a tertian malaria parasite (Plasmodium vivax), a quartan malaria parasite and/or an ovale malaria parasite at the same time or in distinction from one another making good use of this nucleotide fragment.
BACKGROUND ART
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by the infection of a plasmodium and is carried by Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria not only widely spreads all over the tropics, but also occurs in many of temperate regions. According to the report of World Health Organization (WHO), the putative numbers of cases and deaths amount to two hundred and seventy million and "Tropical Disease in Research, 1989-1990" (8) UNDP/World Bank/WHO (TDR), WHO Geneva (1991), p. 29-40!. It is hence of urgent necessity to consider countermeasures. The countermeasures are centered on early detection and early treatment by mass examination. However, the present diagnosis does not cope with wide-range mass examination.
The microscopy in which a blood smear is Giemsa-stained and the stained sample is then observed through a microscope has heretofore been used in the diagnosis of malaria. The microscopy is cheap and can be simply practiced. On the other hand, its judgment requires much skill. Since the number of samples on which one inspection expert can test in a day is 60 to 70 specimens, such a method cannot cope with a great number of infected persons in the area where malaria is prevalent and the number of inspection experts is insufficient. In particular, when targets are subclinical persons as in mass examination, many of positive persons have a very few plasmodia in their blood. Therefore, it takes a long time to judge, and there is a great risk of making a wrong diagnosis as to the presence of a plasmodium and the kind of the plasmodium if present.
The serodiagnosis is widely practiced after the microscopy. The serodiagnosis is a method in which an antibody (which is said to lighten the symptoms upon infection though its activity is not so high that the infection is prevented) produced after infected with a plasmodium is detected, and techniques such as the indirect fluorescent antibody technique and ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay) have been developed. These methods permit the treatment of a large number of samples and are hence being widely used in mass examination and as means for immunological research studies even at present. However, such a method involves a problem in that even if the antibody is found to be positive by the serodiagnosis, this detection cannot distinguish infection at the time 2,1509-1511 (1987)!. This method is clinically considered to be an ancillary diagnosis.
With the recent development of the molecular biology, it has also been conducted to detect plasmodia by DNA diagnosis. It has been reported that characteristic sequences consisting of many repetitions having a length of 20 to 30 bases exist in genes of plasmodia, probes specific for these regions as targets have been developed, which can achieve still higher sensitivity than that of probes making any other region as a target involved problems such as the detection requires hybridization, which makes use of a membrane and is hence complicated in operation, and the sensitivity is lower than expected when the method is clinically tested in order to enhance the sensitivity, a detection method making use of a 409-414 (1990)!. This method is a method in which a part of a 18S ribosome RNA gene of a falciparum malaria parasite is subjected to gene amplification to detect it.
However, since an area where falciparum malaria is prevalent often overlap an area where tertian malaria is prevalent, the detection of the falciparum malaria parasite alone according to the above-described method is insufficient to conduct effective treatment. Even if high-sensitive detection can
REFERENCES:
Waters et al, Lancet (1989) i, 1343-1346.
Waters et al. Nucleic Acid Research (1989) 17 (No. 5) 2135.
McCutchar, Computer Printout of N-Genesef Accession No's: Q12367-Q12378.
Snounou et al, Molecular & Biochemical Parasitology (Apr. 1993) 58: 283-292.
Li et al, Experimental Parasitology (Feb. 1993) 76: 32-38.
Lal et al, Molecular & Biochemical Parasitology (1989) 36:67-72.
Goman et al, Molecular & Biochemical Parasitology (1991) 45:281-288.
Andrew P. Waters et al., "Rapid, Sensitive Diagnosis of Malaria Based on Ribosomal RNA", The Lancet, vol. I, No. 8651, Jun. 17, 1989.
Database WPI, Section Ch, Week 9340, Derwent Publications Ltd., "Detection of Malaria Parasites Using Primer Selected From 8 Specified Nucleic Acid Fragments", and JP 05 227 998 A, Sep. 7, 1993.
Wataya Yusuke
Yamane Akio
Myers Carla J.
Wakunaga Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
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