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Volume 8, Number 10—October 2002
Letter

Evaluation and Validation of a Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay for Rapid Identification of Bacillus anthracis

Alex R. Hoffmaster, Richard F. Meyer, Michael P. Bowen, Chung K. Marston, Robbin S. Weyant, Kathy Thurman, Sharon L. Messenger, Erin E. Minor, Jonas M. Winchell, Max V. Rasmussen, Bruce R. Newton, J. Todd Parker, William E. Morrill, Nancy McKinney, Gwen A. Barnett, James J. Sejvar, John A. Jernigan, Bradley A. Perkins, and Tanja Popovic
Author affiliation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

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Table

Origin, designations, and results of real-time polymerase chain reaction assay for Bacillus anthracis strainsa

No. positive/total
B. anthracis No. analyzed Temporal range and geographic origin MLVA genotypes representeda Ba1b Ba2b Ba3b
Human isolates 30 1943–1996 Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America 3, 4, 22, 23, 28, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 41, 43, 44, 45, 50, 66, 68 30/30 30/30 30/30
Animal isolates 29 Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America 3, 10, 20, 26, 29, 30, 35, 38, 40, 45, 48, 49, 51, 55, 57, 78, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87, 89 29/29 29/29 29/29
Other isolates 16 1950–1993
Africa, Asia, Europe, N. America		 13, 14, 21, 24, 47, 62, 69, 73, 77, 79, 82 16/16 16/16 16/16
Outbreak isolates 317 2001
U.S. outbreak		 62 317/317 317/317 317/317
pXO1 cured 5 1956–1974
North America		 5/5 0/5 5/5
pXO2 cured 1 Africa 0/1 1/1 1/1

aMLVA, multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis as described by Keim et al. (15). bBa1, Ba2, and Ba3 primer/probe sets as described in Materials and Methods.

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