An internal control for the rapid detection of mycobacteria by amplification of a segment of the gene encoding alpha antigen.

The internal control of DNA for the rapid detection of mycobacteria by PCR is described. The 1100bp fragment for internal control was produced from Streptomyces lividans DNA with the primers used for the rapid detection of mycobacteria by PCR. The amplified reaction consequently produced two products with 782bp for mycobacteria and 1100bp for the internal control extracted from all mycobacterial DNAs containing internal control so far examined. The 1100bp amplified fragment proved to be useful as an internal control with the same primer-binding sequence for the detection of mycobacteria.