title: Evaluation of the Seeplex® Meningitis ACE Detection kit for the detection of 12 common bacterial and viral pathogens of acute meningitis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bacterial meningitis is an infectious disease with high rates of mortality and high frequency of severe sequelae. Early identification of causative bacterial and viral pathogens is important for prompt and proper treatment of meningitis and for prevention of life-threatening clinical outcomes. In the present study, we evaluated the value of the Seeplex Meningitis ACE Detection kit (Seegene Inc., Korea), a newly developed multiplex PCR kit employing dual priming oligonucleotide methods, for diagnosing acute meningitis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Analytical sensitivity of the kit was studied using reference strains for each pathogen targeted by the kit, while it's analytical specificity was studied using the human genome DNA and 58 clinically well-identified reference strains. For clinical validation experiment, we used 27 control cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples and 78 clinical CSF samples collected from patients at the time of diagnosis of acute meningitis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The lower detection limits ranged from 10(1) copies/µL to 5×10(1) copies/µL for the 12 viral and bacterial pathogens targeted. No cross-reaction was observed. In the validation study, high detection rate of 56.4% was obtained. None of the control samples tested positive, i.e., false-positive results were absent.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Seeplex Meningitis ACE Detection kit showed high sensitivity, specificity, and detection rate for the identification of pathogens in clinical CSF samples. This kit may be useful for rapid identification of important acute meningitis-causing pathogens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea.
authors.forename: So Youn
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Kye Chul
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Jong Woo
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Ji Myung
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: So Young
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Sun Hoe
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Koo
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008581:Meningitis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000821:virology; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA
chemical_list: D012329:RNA, Bacterial; D012367:RNA, Viral; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic