Development and evaluation of a TaqMan® real-time PCR assay for species-specific detection of Ehrlichia canis

The aim of this work was to develop a real-time PCR assay with a TaqMan® probe that detects a species-specific part of the 16S rDNA gene of Ehrlichia canis. Canine blood samples (n = 207), collected and tested by a conventional PCR assay within a study conducted by De Salvo et al., were simultaneously analyzed with the novel designed real-time PCR, and the results of both assays were compared. The agreement between the two methods was 97.6 % with a kappa value of 0.92186. Hereby, the standard error was 0.034416 and the 95 % confidence interval from 0.8544 to 0.98931. While the conventional PCR assay showed false negative results (2.42 %; 5/207), the real-time PCR assays showed a specificity of 100 %. The results of the current study showed that the developed assay presents sensitivity and specificity for the detection of E. canis in blood samples, adding a new tool for the diagnosis of this pathogen.