Diagnostic Findings [Last Modified: ]
Pneumocystis infections
[Pneumocystis jiroveci]
Causal Agent Life Cycle Geographic Distribution Clinical Features Laboratory Diagnosis Treatment

Molecular Diagnosis
Molecular methods for detection of P. jiroveci have shown very high sensitivity and specificity and constitute the gold standard for detection of this pathogen.

Agarose Gel - PCR for Pneumocystis
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A: Agarose gel (2%) analysis of PCR-amplified products from DNA extracted from a bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) diagnostic specimen of a patient with pulmonary symptoms.

  • Lane S: Molecular base pair standard (100-bp ladder).  Black arrows show the size of standard bands.
  • Lane 1: Single-step PCR amplification with the pAZ102-E/pAZ102-H primer pair1 - diagnostic band size: 346 bp.
  • Lane 2: Nested PCR amplification with the ITS nested PCR primers, 1724F/ITS2R (first round) and ITS1F/ITS2R1 (second round)2 - diagnostic band size: 550 bp.

References:

  1. Wakefield AE, Pixley FJ, Banerji S, Sinclair K, Miller RF, Moxon ER, Hopkin JM. Amplification of mitochondrial ribosomal RNA sequences from Pneumocystis carinii of rat and human origin. Mol Biochem Parasitol 1990;43:69-76.
  2. Lu JJ, Chen CH, Bartlett MS, Smith JW, Lee CH. Comparison of six different PCR methods for detection of Pneumocystis carinii. J Clin Microbiol 1995;33:2785-2788.
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