Evaluation of commercial qPCR kits for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in pooled samples
Preprint
Abstract
Due to the current pandemic, global shortage of reagents has drawn interest in developing alternatives to increase the number coronavirus tests. One such alternative is sample pooling. Here we compared commercial kits that are used in COVID-19 diagnostics, in terms of sensitivity and feasibility for use in pooling. We showed that pooling of up to 60 samples did not affect the efficiency of the kits. Also, the RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) is a more suitable target in pooled samples than the Envelope (E) protein. This approach could provide an easy method of screening large number of samples and help adjust different government regulations.Keywords
All Related Versions
- Published version: Diagnostics, 10 (7), 472.
This publication has 13 references indexed in Scilit:
- Overcoming the bottleneck to widespread testing: a rapid review of nucleic acid testing approaches for COVID-19 detectionRNA, 2020
- Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019Nature, 2020
- A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019New England Journal of Medicine, 2020
- Molecular Diagnosis of a Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Causing an Outbreak of PneumoniaClinical Chemistry, 2020
- Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCREurosurveillance, 2020
- A methodology for deriving the sensitivity of pooled testing, based on viral load progression and pooling dilutionJournal of Translational Medicine, 2019
- Detection of African swine fever, classical swine fever, and foot-and-mouth disease viruses in swine oral fluids by multiplex reverse transcription real-time polymerase chain reactionJournal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, 2015
- Evaluation of Pooling Strategies for Acute HIV-1 Infection Screening Using Nucleic Acid Amplification TestingJournal of Clinical Microbiology, 2011
- Detection of Influenza a Virus in Porcine Oral Fluid SamplesJournal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, 2011
- The development of oral fluid-based diagnostics and applications in veterinary medicineAnimal Health Research Reviews, 2010