Evaluation of the Seeplex® Meningitis ACE Detection Kit for the Detection of 12 Common Bacterial and Viral Pathogens of Acute Meningitis

Shin, So Youn; Kwon, Kye Chul; Park, Jong Woo; Kim, Ji Myung; Shin, So Young; Koo, Sun Hoe

Acute meningitis requires prompt treatment to avoid life-threatening clinical outcomes and severe sequelae. Since various viral and bacterial pathogens can cause acute meningitis, the causative agent must be identified before treatment is initiated. Conventional diagnostic tools, including CSF staining, culture, and antigen analysis, have limited diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. This has prompted the development of several molecular methods employing conventional, real-time, or multiplex PCR. Although previously developed multiplex PCR methods can rapidly identify up to 9 bacterial and viral agents, the Seeplex Meningitis ACE detection kit, which employs a DPO method, can identify the 12 most common bacterial and viral agents that cause meningitis: SP, HI, NM, GBS, LM, CMV, HEV, EBV, HSV-1, HSV-2, HHV-6, and VZV. DPOs, which consist of 2 separate priming regions joined by a polydeoxyinosine linker, yield 2 primer segments with distinct annealing properties. The long 5′-segment initiates stable priming, whereas the short 3′-segment controls target-specific extension; the use of these 2 primer segments effectively eliminates non-specific priming and yields consistently high PCR specificity even under less-than-optimal PCR conditions [13] . This method is highly appropriate for the identification and differentiation of viral and bacterial pathogens with very variable genetic characteristics and low availability of primer sites. Several multiplex PCR kits using the DPO technology have been developed to identify common viral and bacterial pathogens causing respiratory infections and diarrhea, and such kits are currently being used in clinical laboratories [14] [15] [16] .