Tuberculosis remains a major global health problem and ranks as the second leading cause of death from an infectious disease worldwide, after HIV. It is the first infectious disease declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global health emergency.The diagnosis of M. tuberculosis complex is required for the definitive diagnosis of tuberculosis and optimal control.

The conventional identification of MTB isolates by culture and phenotypic characterization is widely used but it takes 4 to 6 weeks or longer as for slow growing species. Molecular genetic approaches for M. tuberculosis identification directly from clinical samples or on cultured isolates are preferred because of their high sensitivity and specificity, as well as rapid processing time.

These methods can potentially lessen the diagnostic time from weeks to days. Using the multicopy insertion sequence IS6110 for MTB detection enables highest sensitivity compared with conventional single copy genes detection methods. IS6110 sequence is very specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and thus differentiates them from other mycobacteria.

Mylab Discovery Solutions provides real time PCR based rapid detection of target sequence of M. tuberculosis complex and internal control in a single tube. The real time assay uses the Taqman fluorogenic probe based chemistry that uses the 5´ nuclease activity of Taq DNA polymerase and enables the detection of a specific PCR product as it accumulates during PCR cycles.