TRUPCR ® BKV Viral Load Kit

The BK virus is a member of the polyomavirus family. BK viral infections are typically asymptomatic in healthy individuals, however very mild symptoms may appear including mild respiratory infections and fever. Once an individual has been infected the virus disseminates to the kidneys and the urinary tract where it remains for the lifetime of the individual. Infections with the BK virus in immunocompromised or immunosupressed patients are much more severe and may involve renal dysfunction. In kidney transplant patients the immunosupressive drugs required for the transplant may allow the virus to replicate within the graft, resulting in a disease called BK virus nephropathy (BKVN) . The kit is a real-time PCR kit. The forward and reverse primers hybridise to a specific sequence product. A probe, which is contained in the same reaction mixture and which consists of an oligonucleotide labelled with a 5′-reporter dye and a downstream, 3′-quencher dye, hybridises to a target sequence within the PCR product. A Taq polymerase which possesses 5′ – 3′ exonuclease activity cleaves the probe. The reporter dye and quencher dye are separated upon cleavage, resulting in an increase in fluorescence for the reporter. Thus, the increase in fluorescence is directly proportional to the target amplification during PCR. Click here to access the kit insert/IFU and the Declaration of Conformity for this product.