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. 2020 Aug:97:225-229.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.06.027. Epub 2020 Jun 12.

Multiple assays in a real-time RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2 panel can mitigate the risk of loss of sensitivity by new genomic variants during the COVID-19 outbreak

Luis Peñarrubia  1 , Maria Ruiz  1 , Roberto Porco  1 , Sonia N Rao  2 , Martí Juanola-Falgarona  1 , Davide Manissero  3 , Marta López-Fontanals  4 , Josep Pareja  5
Affiliations

Multiple assays in a real-time RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2 panel can mitigate the risk of loss of sensitivity by new genomic variants during the COVID-19 outbreak

Luis Peñarrubia et al. Int J Infect Dis. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Objectives: In this study, five SARS-CoV-2 PCR assay panels were evaluated against the accumulated genetic variability of the virus to assess the effect on sensitivity of the individual assays.

Design or methods: As of week 21, 2020, the complete set of available SARS-CoV-2 genomes from GISAID and GenBank databases were used in this study. SARS-CoV-2 primer sequences from publicly available panels (WHO, CDC, NMDC, and HKU) and QIAstat-Dx were included in the alignment, and accumulated genetic variability affecting any oligonucleotide annealing was annotated.

Results: A total of 11,627 (34.38%) genomes included single mutations affecting annealing of any PCR assay. Variations in 8,773 (25.94%) genomes were considered as high risk, whereas additional 2,854 (8.43%) genomes presented low frequent single mutations and were predicted to yield no impact on sensitivity. In case of the QIAstat-Dx SARS-CoV-2 Panel, 99.11% of the genomes matched with a 100% coverage all oligonucleotides, and critical variations were tested in vitro corroborating no loss of sensitivity.

Conclusions: This analysis stresses the importance of targeting more than one region in the viral genome for SARS-CoV-2 detection to mitigate the risk of loss of sensitivity due to the unknown mutation rate during this SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

Keywords: Genomic variants; RT-PCR performance; SARS-CoV-2; Sensitivity.

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