FIG. 1.

Robustness of the cellular and standard IC systems. For both IC systems, a GBS-negative vaginal or anal sample was prepared by using the 10-min manual DNA extraction method. Control reactions without clinical sample were also performed. For the cellular IC, a portion of the clinical sample was spiked with 2 × 10⁴ B. atrophaeus spores before cell lysis and DNA extraction (giving the equivalent of 500 spores per PCR). For the standard IC, 60 copies of linearized plasmid were added to each PCR. All PCR amplifications were carried out in the presence of approximately 100 GBS genome copies. Cycle threshold values obtained from both the TET-labeled IC-specific probes (A) and the FAM-labeled GBS-specific probes (B) are presented. Standard deviations are for three replicate tests.