Sensitive Detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in Human Respiratory Tract Samples by Optimized Real-Time PCR Approach

Abstract
To enhance the sensitivity of the available real-time PCR systems for the detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae , we established a method to amplify copies of the repetitive element repMp1. In a study of respiratory tract samples, we found that, compared to the use of the conserved part of the P1 adhesin gene as a monocopy target, the use of the repMp1-PCR showed an increase in the detected genome equivalents by a factor of 22.