Intravitam diagnosis of rabies from saliva by nested RT-PCR and real time PCR

Abstract

Nested reverse transcription (RT)-PCR and SYBR Green real time PCR protocols for the intravitam detection of rabies virus genomic RNA were tested with clinical samples for the first time from rabies suspected animals (n=12). With SYBR Green real time PCR, five saliva samples were detected as positive, hence confirming that, for the sake of antemortem detection of rabies in saliva of animals, the sensitivity of real time PCR is more than that of RT-PCR as well as immunofluorescence that could detect rabies in three saliva samples each.