A rapid polymerase chain reaction protocol to detect adenovirus in eye swabs

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Viruses of the Adenoviridae family are associated with many clinical syndromes, processing 50 serotypes. These agents and viruses of the Herpesviridae family are the two major agents responsible for viral conjunctivitis, and a rapid diagnosis is important due to the epidemic character of adenoviral infection. Methods: We developed a PCR without DNA extraction for adenovirus using primers thath amplify a 300 tp gragament of the hexon capsid protein gene from many serotypes. Results: Swab samples from cornea of seven patients with keratoconjunctivitis were analyzed, and one of them was PCR positive for adenovirus. The sequence of this fragment shows a 100 percent homology with the sequence of adenovirus type 8. Conclusion: Sequencing of 300 bp from the hexon gene allows to identity almost all Ad serotypes, including all serotypes related to epidemic keratokonjuntivitis (8, 19,37) and almost all serotypes involved with Ad-associated conjunctivitis.