PCR analysis

The analysis with QIAstat-Dx® Gastrointestinal Panel 1 was carried out according to the manufacturer’s instructions and as previously described [7]. The analysis requires approximately 50–200 mg of feces collected with a flocked swab from the FaecalSwab sample collection system (Copan, Brescia, Italy) that has to be resuspended in 2 mL of Cary-Blair transport medium. A total of 200 μL of the FaecalSwab suspension was collected using a transfer pipette and loaded into the liquid sample port of a QIAstat-Dx® Gastrointestinal Panel cartridge. All reactions are performed by the closed QIAstat-Dx® system within the loaded cartridge and included lysis, extraction, amplification, and measurements of fluorescence of the amplified PCR products. The QIAstat-Dx® Analyzer Software interprets the results and generates test reports used to evaluate potential gastrointestinal pathogen findings. An internal control is included in the assay to monitor the quality of the reactions for a given sample. If the internal control is reported positive, all results are valid. If the internal control is reported negative, only positive results for targets are valid while negative results for targets are invalid. Running a sample with the QIAstat-Dx® Gastrointestinal Panel takes approximately 70 min/sample.