Evaluation of Three Real-Time PCR Assays for Detection of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in an Outbreak Investigation

Abstract
We compared the performances of three recently optimized real-time PCR assays derived from distinct genomic regions of Mycoplasma pneumoniae during an outbreak. Comprehensive evaluation established that a newly described toxin gene represents a superior target for detecting M. pneumoniae DNA in clinical specimens, although use of multiple targets may increase testing confidence.