Improved diagnosis of spring viremia of carp by nested reverse-transcription PCR: development of a chimeric positive control for prevention of false-positive diagnosis.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays allow for the rapid and accurate detection of infectious agents through identification of nucleic acid sequences. However, contamination of samples with positive DNA can lead to false-positive results. In this study, positive control plasmids were developed to minimize false-positive reactions due to PCR contamination during detection of SVCV by semi-nested reverse-transcription PCR. An ampicillin resistance gene was truncated by PCR amplification, and the fragments were inserted into pGEM-T Easy vectors; the resulting plasmids were named SVCV chimeric plasmid-1 and chimeric plasmid-2, respectively. Through a series of semi-nested PCRs, the use of SVCV chimeric plasmids-1 and -2 was shown to ensure correct diagnoses, free from PCR contamination. The results of this study show that PCR positive controls can be created without use of viral nucleic acids or pathogen-infected tissues. The technique can be applied to quarantined material and can be used to detect other pathogens.