小兒科CHANG, LUAN-YINLUAN-YINCHANG2008-12-292018-07-112008-12-292018-07-112002http://ntur.lib.ntu.edu.tw//handle/246246/94844Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common illness in children and is usually caused by coxsackievirus A 16 and enterovirus 71. It has been noted that enterovirus 71 infection is more severe with significantly greater frequency of serious complications and fatality than coxsackievirus A 16. Therefore, it is important to develop a rapid and specific assay for discriminating coxsackievirus A 16 and enterovirus 71 in hand, foot and mouth disease outbreaks. In this study we designed two sets of RT-PCR primers specific for coxsackievirus A 16 and enterovirus 71 . One hundred and eighty-nine viruses were evaluated for this molecular diagnosis assay. Among 110 enterovirus 71 strains , the enterovirus 71 specific primers gave clear signal for 107 clinical enterovirus 71 isolates and three reference enterovirus 71 strains. None of coxsackievirus A 16, other enteroviruses or non-enteroviruses show signal for enterovirus 71-specific primers. On the other hand, among 28 coxsackievirus A 16 strains, the coxsackievirus A 16- specific primers detect 27 clinical isolates and one reference strain but show no cross- reaction with other viruses. The molecular assay developed in this study provides a sensitive and specific way to distinguish coxsackievirus A 16 and enterovirus 71 induced hand, foot and mouth disease, which will be a useful rapid diagnostic method in future outbreaks.en-USHandfoot and mouth diseaseCoxsackievirus A 16Enterovirjournal article