Compositions and methods for detecting vancomycin resistant enterococci by cycling probe reactions

Abstract

A method for determining the presence of vancomycin antibiotic resistant gene of enterococci in a biological sample, comprising the steps of (a) treating cells contained within the biological sample to expose single stranded-target nucleic acid molecules; (b) reacting the target single-stranded cellular nucleic acids with probe(s) nucleic acid sequence complementary to a portion of the antibiotic vancomycin resistant gene and the probe having a scissile linkage, and with an enzyme molecule, under conditions, which allow the target and probe to hybridize to each other and form a double-stranded, target-probe complex, the enzyme molecule being capable of cleaving the scissile link of the target-probe complex such that one or more fragments of the nucleic acid probe is released from said complex; and (c) determining whether cleaved portions of the nucleic acid probe are produced, and thereby detecting the presence of a vancomycin antibiotic resistant gene.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.