Generally, culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of
N. gonorrhoeae isolates is time consuming and labor intensive.
Therefore, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based tests, which are
highly sensitive and specific, have been developed. However, the
antimicrobial susceptibility is not generally included in these tests.
Thus, we developed a PCR method for gonococcal identification
and also differentiation of their antimicrobial resistance. A singletube multiplex PCR specific for gonococci including a series of
primers to detect penicillin, tetracycline, andfluoroquinoloneresistant genes was developed(12). Furthermore, our method also
differentiates the specific types of plasmid-mediated resistance to
penicillin (Asia, Africa, and Toronto), and tetracycline (American
and Dutch). This method is suitable to be used in the routine laboratory to reduce the time-consuming and labor-intensive standard
methods for the detection of gonococci and its antibiotic
susceptibility.