Evaluating the efficacy of RT-qPCR SARS-CoV-2 direct approaches in comparison to RNA extraction

Israeli, O.; Beth-Din, A.; Paran, N.; Stein, D.; Lazar, S.; Weiss, S.; Milrot, E.; Atiya-Nasagi, Y.; Yitzhaki, S.; Laskar, O.; Schuster, O.

doi:10.1101/2020.06.10.144196

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.06.10.144196

Evaluating the efficacy of RT-qPCR SARS-CoV-2 direct approaches in comparison to RNA extraction

Israeli, O.·Beth-Din, A.·Paran, N.·Stein, D.·Lazar, S.·Weiss, S.·Milrot, E.·Atiya-Nasagi, Y.·Yitzhaki, S.·Laskar, O.·Schuster, O.

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Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 genetic identification is based on viral RNA extraction prior to RT-qPCR assay, however recent studies support the elimination of the extraction step. Herein, we assessed the RNA extraction necessity, by comparing RT-qPCR efficacy in several direct approaches vs. the gold standard RNA extraction, in detection of SARS-CoV-2 from laboratory samples as well as clinical Oro-nasopharyngeal SARS-CoV-2 swabs. Our findings show advantage for the extraction procedure, however a direct no-buffer approach might be an alternative, since it identified up to 70% of positive clinical specimens.

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Israeli, O., Beth-Din, A., Paran, N., Stein, D., Lazar, S., Weiss, S., Milrot, E., Atiya-Nasagi, Y., Yitzhaki, S., Laskar, O., Schuster, O.. 2020-06-10. Evaluating the efficacy of RT-qPCR SARS-CoV-2 direct approaches in comparison to RNA extraction. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.10.144196

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