Opc gene as a specific genetic marker for human bacterial meningitis

Abstract

The usual diagnosis of bacterial meningitis is expensive, time consuming and non-confirmatory. We report a rapid PCR based diagnosis of bacterial meningitis using specific primers of virulence opc gene of N. meningitid is. Our method is an improvement of the existing methods and the overall analysis completes in 80 min which is the least time reported so far for the confirmation of the disease. Amplicon of 304 bp of opc gene does not show homology with other organisms and can be used as a specific genetic marker for detection of Neisseria meningitidis causing bacterial meningitis in human.