Vitalbacteria
Quantifying patient tuberculosis burden in realtime.
FOR LABORATORY RESEACHERS
Measure bacterial load in hours and know the bactericidal effect of the experimental and standard anti-TB drugs in real-time
FOR DRUG DEVELOPMENT
Know the bactericidal effect of anti-TB compounds in animal models of tuberculosis infection in real-time
FOR CLINICAL
Know the tuberculosis burden of your patient and their response to anti-TB therapy in real-time
VITALBACTERIA MOLECULAR BACTERIAL LOAD ASSAY
The Vitalbacteria molecular bacterial load assay (MBLA) is a culture-free biomarker that aims at providing rapid quantification of viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis in patient sputum. The assay monitors the molecular load of M. tuberculosis cells in sputum samples providing accurate information on bacterial response to antimicrobial treatment.
The bacterial load is determined by detection and quantification of M. tuberculosis using reverse transcriptase real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR).
This novel assay directly quantifies bacterial load in sputum. In comparison to MGIT, MBLA is faster, insensitive to contamination and has the potential to detect non-culturable bacilli. Vitalbacteria MBLA overcomes these inconsistencies in bacterial counts as the assay target, is independent of the cultivability of the sputum sample.
TWO STEP PROCESS
MBLA is a two-step process consisting of:
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- Total RNA extraction and enzymatic removal of genomic DNA
- RT-qPCR and data analysis where cycle threshold (CT) is converted to bacterial load. A cell-based extraction (internal) control is incorporated into the test samples prior to extraction to monitor for extraction efficiency and downstream PCR performance.
With this novel molecular diagnostic assay, it is possible to follow the decline in bacterial load of patients being treated for tuberculosis. As this is a molecular method, the results are available much more rapidly (within hours) than other methods dependent on culture.
Specificity of the reaction means that a false positive result from contamination is not an issue whereas this is a considerable cause of data loss for culture-based methods.
“The TB-MBLA kit has been very useful in monitoring of treatment response here at TASK, South Africa. We are now able to monitor the efficacy of anti-TB drugs and report back to investigators in real time. We are very impressed with the specificity and sensitivity of the assay. We hope to incorporate an automated system in the TB_MBLA protocol to make the assay suitable for commercial use.”
“We would also like to say thank you to the team at University of St Andrews for their assistance during the setting up of TB_MBLA at TASK, South Africa.”
Dr Remous Ocloo, Medical Scientist, TASK Foundation NPC, Cape Town, South Africa