sof gene as a specific genetic marker for detection of Streptococcus pyogenes causing pharyngitis and rheumatic heart disease

Abstract

Streptococcus pyogenes is a human pathogen causing invasive and non-invasive diseases, as well as severe sequels, such as rheumatic fever. Rheumatic heart disease is a sequel of rheumatic fever results from an untreated strep throat causing damage of the heart valves. The usual detection methods of strep throat are culture, virulent test, antibiotic sensitivity, CRP, ESR and PCR. These methods are expensive, time consuming and have some limitations. All reported PCR methods are based on either 16S rRNA or specific gene based along with other methods to confirm the disease in more than 1h. Here, we have developed a PCR based diagnosis of streptococcus pyogenes using specific primers of virulent sof gene (serum opacity factor) of S. pyogenes. Our method is an improvement of the existing methods and the overall analysis completes in 1 h which is the least time reported so far for the confirmation of the disease. Amplicon of 228 bp of sof gene does not show homology with other organisms and can be used as genetic marker for S. pyogenes.