Real-Time Reverse Transcription PCR as a Tool to Study Virulence Gene Regulation in Bacterial Pathogens.

Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) is a highly sensitive and reliable method for detection and quantification of DNA. When combined with a prior stage of RNA reverse transcription to generate complementary DNA (cDNA), this is a powerful approach to determine and analyze gene transcriptional expression. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR has become the gold standard method in studying genes expression and virulence regulation under various genetic backgrounds (e.g., in the absence of regulators) or environmental conditions. Here we demonstrate the utilization of this approach to study the transcriptional regulation of the conjugation pilus of the Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis virulence plasmid (pESI).