Miniaturized thermocycler based on thermoelectric heating for diagnosis of sexually transmitted disease by DNA amplification

Sexually transmitted disease (STD) is among the most common infectious diseases; therefore, it is necessary to develop sensitive early diagnostic techniques. As the gold standard, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been most widely employed for STD diagnosis; however, PCR requires large and expensive instruments. In this study, miniaturized thermal cycler using Peltier modules was developed for the PCR analysis. In comparison with the conventional PCR instrument, the Peltier-based micro-PCR (P-mPCR) device developed in this study enables one to amplify and successfully distinguish between DNA of different sizes. Furthermore, by using the clinical vaginal sample collected with the vaginal swab and tampon, different kinds of STD bacteria could be detected with high accuracy (∼94.19%) and high sensitivity (∼95.6%). Therefore, the P-mPCR device will be applicable in STD diagnosis as well as the detection of other bacteria/viruses using DNA amplification in regions including those with limited resources.