Patent ID: 7955796

Claim:
A method for the detection and quantification of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from a specimen comprising: a) contacting the specimen with Anti-Protein A antibodies so as to adsorb methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and/or methicillin-sensitive Staphyloccoccus aureus , b) separating said antibodies to which methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and/or methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus have been adsorbed from the specimen, c) lysing the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and/or methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus adsorbed to said antibodies so as to release their DNA, d) preparing a solution comprising the released DNA and: i) a first pair of primers, which are capable, in an amplification reaction, of generating a first product, which is a portion of the mecA gene of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis; ii) a second pair of primers, which are capable, in an amplification reaction, of generating a second product, which is a portion of the genome of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus that does not include any of the mecA gene; and iii) a third pair of primers, which are capable, in an amplification reaction, of generating a third product, which is a portion of the genome of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis that does not include any of the mecA gene, wherein the second product and the third product have a homology of lower than 90% and do not cross-hybridize under conditions of 62° C. at 6 mM salt; e) subjecting the solution of step (d) to conditions for said amplification reaction; f) determining the amounts of the first product, the second product and the third product resulting from the amplification reaction.