A colorful test for SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection
We need simple methods to rapidly test large numbers of people for infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) after reverse transcription (RT), the standard method, is very sensitive but requires expensive instrumentation. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is an alternative to qPCR that is faster and requires fewer resources. Dao Thi et al. tested the RT-LAMP assay on several hundred clinical RNA samples isolated from pharyngeal swabs collected from individuals being tested for COVID-19. They confirmed that the RT-LAMP assay was a simpler albeit less sensitive option compared to RT-qPCR for large-scale testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. These investigators also developed a simplified version of this method (direct swab–to–RT-LAMP assay) that did not require a prior RNA isolation step as well as a method for highly multiplexed sequencing of RT-LAMP reactions (LAMP-sequencing).
- Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
