Patent ID: 8535888
Filing Date: 2013-09-17
Classification: C12Q

Abstract:
1. A method of detecting the presence or absence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in a sample, the method comprising performing an amplifying step comprising contacting the sample with a set of MRSA primers to produce an amplification product if MRSA is present in the sample, performing a hybridizing step comprising contacting the amplification product of step (a) with a pair of MRSA probes, wherein a first MRSA probe of the pair of MRSA probes is labeled with a donor fluorescent moiety and wherein a second MRSA probe of the pair of MRSA probes is labeled with a corresponding acceptor fluorescent moiety; and detecting the presence or absence of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between the donor fluorescent moiety of the first MRSA probe and the acceptor fluorescent moiety of the second MRSA probe, wherein the presence of FRET is indicative of the presence of MRSA in the sample and wherein the absence of FRET is indicative of the absence of MRSA in the sample, wherein the method is capable of detecting each of Staphylococcal Chromosomal Cassettes (SCCmec) types I to V of MRSA, and wherein the set of primers comprises 5′-TGA AAT GAA AGA CTG CGG AG-3′ (MRSA direct RE2 fwd; SEQ ID NO:92); 5′-CCA CAT CTC ATT AAA TTT TTA AAT TAT ACA C-3′ (MRSA direct RE3 fwd; SEQ ID NO:93), and a primer set specific for MRSA type RE7, wherein the primer set comprises a primer that consists of the sequence 5′-CAA TCC TTT TTA TAT TTA AAA TAT ATT ATA CAC-3′ (MRSA direct RE7 fwd; SEQ ID NO:94).