Abstract
Some weeks after the first CoVID-19 outbreak, the World Health Organization published some real-time PCR (qPCR) protocols developed by different health reference centers. These qPCR designs are being used worldwide to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the population, to monitor the prevalence of the virus during the pandemic. Moreover, some of these protocols to detect SARS-CoV-2 have widely been applied to environmental samples for epidemiological surveillance purposes. In the present work, the specificity of these currently used RT-qPCR designs was validated in vitro using SARS-CoV-2 and highly related coronaviral genomic sequences and compared to performance of the commercially available GPS™ CoVID-19 dtec-RT-qPCR Test. Assays performed with SARS-CoV-2-related genomes showed positive amplification when using some of these qPCR methods, indicating they may give SARS-CoV-2 false positives. This finding may be particularly relevant for SARS-CoV-2 monitoring of environmental samples, where an unknown pool of phylogenetically close-related viruses may exist.
Keywords: Coronavirus; False positives; Reverse transcription qPCR; SARS-CoV-2; Specificity.
【저자키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, specificity., False positives, Reverse transcription qPCR, 【초록키워드】 pandemic, protocol, Genome, Transcription, Test, in vitro, virus, Prevalence, amplification, specificity, RT-qPCR, Health, Surveillance, Real-time PCR, outbreak, qPCR, epidemiological, epidemiological surveillance, False positives, Health Organization, World Health Organization, Coronaviral, positive, MONITOR, genomic sequence, performed, detect, virus, applied, phylogenetically, 【제목키워드】 RT-qPCR, positive result, current, detect, coronavirus,