A Pipeline-Based Oil-Bath PCR Method for Bacteria Detection

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology is an essential technology for point-of-care testing (POCT) application. To realize the simple, portable and fast detection of bacteria has always been an important technology. In this paper, we developed a pipeline-based oil-bath PCR method, to achieve the PCR amplification and detection for bacteria. We assembled a small-sized system with a uniform temperature environment and a stable heating module. By comparing the PCR performance with the other two existing pipeline-based methods on the reactions of both DNA fragment of H7N9 avian influenza and Escherichia Coli, the results show that the pipeline-based oil-bath PCR method is fully capable of the amplification and detection of both DNA fragment and bacteria. At the meanwhile, we performed two sets of tests, the experiment of pipeline diameter change and bacterial concentration gradient, to verify the sensitivity and universality of this method. The results show that the pipeline-based oil-bath PCR method developed by us not only gets rid of the complicated preparations, offers advantages of simple operation, low-cost and user-friendly, but also provides a stable and portable foundation for our later work.