Polynucleotides for the amplification and detection of chlamydia trachomatis

A method of detecting Chlamydia trachomatis in a test sample, the method comprising:

• (a) extracting nucleic acid from the test sample;
• (b) amplifying a target sequence by reacting the nucleic acid extracted in step (a) with a reaction mixture comprising a strand displacement DNA polymerase and a sequence-specific primer set, wherein said sequence-specific primer set comprises a forward inner primer comprising the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:
• 83 and a backward inner primer comprising the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:
• 84;
• and
• (c) detecting the presence or absence of an amplified product of step (b);
• wherein detecting the presence or absence of the amplified product comprises hybridizing the amplified product with a molecular beacon comprising a fluorophore, a quencher, and a polynucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs:
• 97-101 and 103-130;
• and further wherein the presence of said amplification product is indicative of the presence of Chlamydia trachomatis in the test sample.