Patent ID: 7879581

Claim:
A method of detecting Mycobacterium species present in a biological sample, comprising the steps of: providing a biological sample containing nucleic acid from at least one Mycobacterium species comprising a Mycobacterium 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) or DNA encoding a Mycobacterium 16S rRNA; amplifying the Mycobacterium 16S rRNA or Mycobacterium DNA encoding the Mycobacterium 16S rRNA in an in vitro nucleic acid amplification mixture comprising at least one polymerase activity, and a combination of at least one first oligonucleotide and at least one second oligonucleotide, wherein the first oligonucleotide consists a target-specific sequence that consists of SEQ ID NO:5 joined to a 5′ promoter sequence or SEQ ID NO:11, and the second oligonucleotide consists of SEQ ID NO:16 or SEQ ID NO:38 to produce amplified Mycobacterium nucleic acid; and detecting the amplified Mycobacterium nucleic acid by detecting a label associated with the amplified Mycobacterium nucleic acid.