Development of a Fluorescence Quantitative PCR Method for Detection of Marteilia refringens in Shellfish

Abstract [Objective] This paper was to develop a fluorescence quantitative PCR method for detection of M. refringens in shellfish. [Method] A pair of primers and a TaqMan probe were designed and synthesized according to the conserved gene se- quences of M. refringens in GenBank, so as to develop a fluorescence quantitative PCR method for detection of M. refringens. The developed fluorescence quantitative PCR method was compared with conventional PCR detection. [Result] The fluores- cence quantitative PCR could detect 40 template copies of plasmid DNA, and its sensitivity was 100 times higher than the conventional PCR. The detection results of Perkinsus sp, Haplosporidium sp, Aeromonas hydrophila, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Vibrio parahaemolyticu, Vibrio alginolyticu, Vibrio rluvialis and Vibrio mimicus were negtive. [Conclusion] The fluorescence quantitative PCR method for M. refringens es- tablished in this paper is specific, sensitive, rapid and quantitative with good re- peatability, which can be used for clinical detection of M. refringens infection.