Polymerase chain reaction assay of ureaplasma strains isolated from high vaginal swabs of women in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

Human ureaplasma previously had one species known as Ureaplasma urealyticum but was recently separated into 2 species, U. urealyticum and U. parvum. This study was carried out to separate the ureaplasma strains isolated from women attending a tertiary-care hospital in Nigeria. Thirty (30) Ureaplasma strains isolated from the vaginal tracts of 13 pregnant and 17 non-pregnant women were assayed. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique was employed using two primer pairs: UMS-170/UMA-263 specific for U. urealyticum and UMS-57/UMA-222 specific for U. parvum. The positivity bands of the primer pairs were 476 bp and 326 bp for U. urealyticum and U. parvum respectively. All isolates were found to be U. urealyticumn (100%). Eleven (84.6%) of the 13 U. urealyticum from pregnant women were from asymptomatic women while from the non-pregnant women; 6 (35.3%) were from women with complaint of infertility problems; 5 (29.4%) from those who complained of vaginal discharge, one (5.9%) was asymptomatic while the remaining 5 (29.4%) had various other complaints. U. urealyticum is thus the prevalent species of Ureaplasma among pregnant and non-pregnant women in the study population and this to the best of our knowledge is a pioneer study to speciate human ureaplasmas in this country.