Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage studies in adults: Importance, challenges, and key issues to consider when using quantitative PCR-based approaches.

ABSTRACT: Streptococcus pneumoniae causes significant morbidity and mortality among older adults. Detection of pneumococcal carriage is an accepted endpoint in pneumococcal conjugate vaccine studies. However, low sensitivity of culture-based approaches and nasopharyngeal samples have hampered adult S. pneumoniae carriage studies in the past. In contrast, detection of adult S. pneumoniae carriers with qPCR-based approaches can achieve high sensitivity and specificity and qPCR-based testing of oral samples improves accuracy of adult carriage detection. In this Viewpoint we outline a strategy for accurate qPCR-based testing. We recommend a dual-target approach for S. pneumoniae qPCR detection as no genetic target is universally present among or solely unique to it. Furthermo

SUBMITTER: Miellet WR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9994646 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature