The use of qualitative and quantitative polymerase chain reactions for diagnosis of cytomegalovirus infections in bone marrow and kidney transplant recipients.

The purpose of this work was to test a cytomegalovirus qualitative PCR and a semi-quantitative PCR on the determination of CMV load in leukocytes of bone marrow and kidney transplanted (RT) patients. Thirty three BMT and 35 RT patients participated of the study. The DNA was subjected to a qualitative PCR using primers that amplify part of CMV gB gene. CMV load of positive samples was determined by a semi-quantitative PCR using quantified plasmids inserted with part of the gB gene of CMV as controls. The sensitivity of the test was determined to be 867 plasmid copies/ microg DNA. CMV loads between 2,118 and 72,443 copies/ microg DNA were observed in 12.1% BMT recipients and between 1,246 and 58,613 copies/ microg DNA in 22.9% RT recipients. Further studies are necessary to confirm the usefulness of this CMV semi-quantitative PCR in transplanted patients.