present study revealed that the sensitivity and specificity of the method for identifying resistant strains have a significant impact on the speed and accuracy of detection. However, to obtain specificity of the Real Time PCR and primers, DNA melting curve analysis (MCA) and standard curve in different dilutions were used. The efficiency of the dilution for all genes was at least 99.99%, the r2 was >0.99.99, and melt curves yielded single peaks. These features are exemplified in Figure 1 and 2 showing the difference between a nonoptimized and optimized standard curve. Interestingly, the slope of the Ct vs DNA relationship varied little across the 9 fold- dilution tested, ranging from -3.589 to -3.955. Also, No amplification, i.e. CT > 40, was obtained for P. aeruginosa PASGNDM699 strain. According to Lalonde et al[21] and Heydari el al[22] studies, this can be justified because short fragment binds less fluorescent and compensated by its higher primer concentration. However, sometimes the peak height of short amplicon increases in different replicate. This problem gets extremely worse in the MCA that sometimes we lost the long amplicon even at the primer ratio of 1:1. Furthermore, this results agree with Mentasti et al[2]. They proved that the MCA method for the detection of NDM strains has high efficiency and precision, which is best achieved by adjusting the primer dilutions.
Morever, three NDM-1 primers with different amplicon length and MBL primers were used to detect P. aeruginosa PASGNDM699 strain. Based on Melting temperatures of different dilutions of standard DAN, melt curves of gene amplification were equal to 87.7±0.5˚C, 76.6±0.5˚C, 82.6±0.5˚C for NDM-1 primers, and 90.0± 0.5˚C for blaVIM, 90.0± 0.5˚C for blaSIM, 90.0± 0.5˚C for blaSIM primers for MBL genes, respectively. This indicated that the specificity of primers with 5°C error range can detect P. aeruginosa PASGNDM699 strains. Andini et al[23] showed that accurate analysis of the melting curve could play a very important role in the diagnosis. Ashrafi et al [10]found that to obtain the best performance in sophisticated methods such as HRM, the melting temperature of DNA must be monitored in various dilutions to obtain accurate sensitivity and specificity. Tahmasebi et al[7] also conformed that efficiency is probably due to the shorter length of products of primers, which enabled better amplification in PCR.
In this study, in Figure 1 showed that for the NDM-1 primer set with 55bp, the linear range was determined to extend as low as 100 CFU/mL, NDM-1 with 85 bp was 103 CFU/mL and NDM-1 with 155bp was 101 CFU/mL as indicated by the lowest DNA concentration value on each of the standard curves. Further, Figure 2 indicates that for the blaSHV primer set, the linear range was determined to extend as low as 100 CFU/mL, blaSPM was 103 CFU/mL and blaVIM was 101 CFU/mL. This is consistent with observation of Smiljanic et al[24]. They illustrated that identification of NDM and MBL strains in Gram-negative non-fermentative is difficult, because the resistance to carbapenems in these bacteria is encoded by similar sequences. Thus, the use of a sensitive and precise method such as HRM along with specific primers could enable the identification of strains such as MBL and NDM.
In the present study, HRM and different primers were used to identify P. aeruginosa PASGNDM699 strain. In a study,by Ding et al.[25] Proposed the resistance of PASGNDM699 strain to a wide range of antibiotics. They also confirmed the clinical importance of PASGNDM strains in causing resistant infections. Based on Figure 4 and 5, all the DNA dilutions of P. aeruginosa PASGNDM699 strain were identified (dilution 108 to 100 CFU/mL). The results were different from the obtained by Naas et al[26] and Smiljanic et al[27] studies. They confirmed the identification of NDM strains at dilution 103 and stated that the HRM method had limitations in the detection of different dilutions. Although identification of MBL and NDM strains has been performed in various studies in Sweden[28], USA[29], Australia[30], and Italy[31] in gram-negative Bacteria by HRM method, the novelty of the present study was the use of HRM method to identify P. aeruginosa PASGNDM699 strain. It was also found that the HRM method is highly potent in detecting PASGNDM699 strains that are resistant to colistin and carbapenem.
According to our results, the short primers (N-1 with 55bp and blaVIm with 111bp) had the best sensitivity and specificity in the HRM assay, in addition, they identified the NDM-1 and MBL genes in all dilutions. On the other hand, the purity of the extracted DNA was also a factor. This makes us to think that the amplification of long fragment heavily depends on the DNA quality. Słomka et al[13] demonstrated that when the DNA quality is low, saying DNA degradation or long DNA breaks during extraction makes the long template harder to be amplified. This problem gets worse in digital PCR because the reagent range in the reaction gets more stringent and template is much more diluted. Meanwhile in the digital PCR, as there is only one molecule in the well, the high ratio of primer for short amplicon might not be necessary and even cause the long template can’t be amplified because of the primer competition.
However, HRM assay is used to amplify and concurrently quantify a targeted DNA molecule and enables both detection and quantification of DNA. HRM PCR needs a fluorescent reporter that binds to the formed product and reports its presence by fluorescence. The EvaGreen® Dye was used in this study, because it is an saturating dye which do not interfere with PCR reactions, even if they used at the largest level of saturation which gives the maximum fluorescence; That the Eischeid[32] study confirms these results.
It is necessary to point out limitations of the HRM approach in this study. The length of the selected primers should be considered to identify the bacterial sub-strains. If the ratios of the different agents are higher than 1:10, the system does not detect the infectious agent which is in lower quantities. However, the determination of Tm is very sensitive to the composition of the PCR reaction mixture,especiallyto the ionic strength. To avoid Tm bias due to thepipetting errors between PCR runs, the application of mastermixes is recommended. Limitation of the method can be thatvarious mastermixes offered by differentsuppliers vary in reagent composition. This may influence the Tm values. Besides, in case of different mastermixes from different suppliers, calibration is necessary to establish the newTmdata on the fungal strains.
In conclusion, we demonstrated that the HRM assay is a rapid and sensitive pre-sequence screening tool which allows the detection of point low concetration of a DNA. It eliminates much of the labour and cost involved in performing DNA sequencing of an entire gene and direct DNA sequencing is therefore only required as confirmation of a mutation or polymorphism. Compared with existing methods it is not only more cost-effective, but is also capable of detecting new functional mutations that will have importance in cascade screening of affected subjects. Finally, the analysis of the melting curves is an important step in the identification of heterozygous base changes. The selection of the melting temperature range is important to the analysis as there needs to be sufficient data both prior to and following the melting transition, to allow reliable normalisation of the melting curves. HRM has also the capacity to greatly increase the scope and sensitivity of haplotype analysis.