Evaluation of recombinase-based isothermal amplification assays for point-of-need detection of SARS-CoV-2 in resource-limited settings

Objectives: The democratization of diagnostics is one of the key challenges towards containing the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) around the globe. The operational complexities of existing PCR-based methods, including sample transfer to advanced central laboratories with expensi...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Prakash Ghosh, Rajashree Chowdhury, Mohammad Enayet Hossain, Faria Hossain, Mojnu Miah, Md. Utba Rashid, James Baker, Mohammed Ziaur Rahman, Mustafizur Rahman, Xuejun Ma, Malcolm S. Duthie, Ahmed Abd El Wahed, Dinesh Mondal
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Elsevier 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/0bf6d75303944f858e799fd4ec6bcef9
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Objectives: The democratization of diagnostics is one of the key challenges towards containing the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) around the globe. The operational complexities of existing PCR-based methods, including sample transfer to advanced central laboratories with expensive equipment, limit their use in resource-limited settings. However, with the advent of isothermal technologies, the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is possible at decentralized facilities. Methods: In this study, two recombinase-based isothermal techniques, reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification (RT-RPA) and reverse transcription recombinase-aided amplification (RT-RAA), were evaluated for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples. A total of 76 real-time reverse transcription PCR (real-time RT-PCR) confirmed COVID-19 cases and 100 negative controls were evaluated to determine the diagnostic performance of the isothermal methods. Results: This investigation revealed equally promising diagnostic accuracy of the two methods, with a sensitivity of 76.32% (95% confidence interval 65.18–85.32%) when the target genes were RdRP and ORF1ab for RT-RPA and RT-RAA, respectively; the combination of N and RdRP in RT-RPA augmented the accuracy of the assay at a sensitivity of 85.53% (95% confidence interval 75.58–92.55%). Furthermore, high specificity was observed for each of the methods, ranging from 94.00% to 98.00% (95% confidence interval 87.40–9.76%). Conclusions: Considering the diagnostic accuracies, both RT-RPA and RT-RAA appear to be suitable assays for point-of-need deployment for the detection of the pathogen, understanding its epidemiology, case management, and curbing transmission.