EVALUATION OF A ONE TUBE REVERSE TRANSCRIPTION-POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION FOR THE DETECTION OF RUMINANT PESTIVIRUSES

A 'one tube' reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction ('one tube' RT-PCR) using rTth DNA polymerase was compared with an existing RT-PCR using Taq DNA polymerase (Taq RT-PCR) to detect ruminant pestiviruses in infected cell cultures. The technically simpler and more convenient 'one tube' method was relatively insensitive detecting only 11 of the 34 samples tested, all of which were positive by Taq RT-PCR.