Rapid diagnosis of enterovirus infections by real-time PCR on the LightCycler using the TaqMan format.

A 2 h single-tube, reverse-transcription(RT)-PCR/hybridization assay using the TaqMan format for rapid diagnostic screening of enterovirus (EV) infections was optimized for the real-time LightCycler (LC) technology. For low EV load clinical samples an additional 30 min reamplification step using a novel primer-mix/probe design resulted in a 100% concordance with AMPLICOR EV PCR Test and in-house RT-PCR. Combined with maximum specificity, the sensitivity of LC-PCR was 10- to 100-fold higher compared to AMPLICOR EV Test.