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Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations

Clinical evidence for asymptomatic cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reinforced the significance of effective surveillance testing programs. Quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assays are considered the ‘gold standard’ for detection of severe acute respir...

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Autores principales: Ganz, Troy, Sanderson, Sarah, Baush, Connor, Mejia, Melanie, Gandhi, Manoj, Auclair, Jared
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9187085/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35687578
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269798
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author Ganz, Troy
Sanderson, Sarah
Baush, Connor
Mejia, Melanie
Gandhi, Manoj
Auclair, Jared
author_facet Ganz, Troy
Sanderson, Sarah
Baush, Connor
Mejia, Melanie
Gandhi, Manoj
Auclair, Jared
author_sort Ganz, Troy
collection PubMed
description Clinical evidence for asymptomatic cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reinforced the significance of effective surveillance testing programs. Quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assays are considered the ‘gold standard’ for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA. However, the labor and resource requirements can be prohibitive with respect to large testing volumes associated with the pandemic. Pooled testing algorithms may serve to increase testing capacity with more efficient resource utilization. Due to the lack of carefully curated cohorts, there is limited evidence for the applicability of RT-PCR pooling in asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. In this study, we compared the analytical sensitivity of the TaqMan™ SARS-CoV-2 Pooling Assay to detect one positive sample in a pool of five anterior nares swabs in symptomatic and asymptomatic cohorts at an institute of higher education. Positive pools were deconvoluted and each individual sample was retested using the TaqPath™ COVID-19 Combo Kit. Both assays target the open reading frame (ORF) 1ab, nucleocapsid (N), and spike (S) gene of the strain that originated in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Qualitative results demonstrated absolute agreement between pooled and deconvoluted samples in both cohorts. Independent t-test performed on C(t) shifts supported an insignificant difference between cohorts with p-values of 0.306 (Orf1ab), 0.147 (N), and 0.052 (S). All negative pools were correctly reported as negative. Pooled PCR testing up to five samples is a valid method for surveillance testing of students and staff in a university setting, especially when the prevalence is expected to be low.
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spelling pubmed-91870852022-06-11 Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations Ganz, Troy Sanderson, Sarah Baush, Connor Mejia, Melanie Gandhi, Manoj Auclair, Jared PLoS One Research Article Clinical evidence for asymptomatic cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reinforced the significance of effective surveillance testing programs. Quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assays are considered the ‘gold standard’ for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA. However, the labor and resource requirements can be prohibitive with respect to large testing volumes associated with the pandemic. Pooled testing algorithms may serve to increase testing capacity with more efficient resource utilization. Due to the lack of carefully curated cohorts, there is limited evidence for the applicability of RT-PCR pooling in asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. In this study, we compared the analytical sensitivity of the TaqMan™ SARS-CoV-2 Pooling Assay to detect one positive sample in a pool of five anterior nares swabs in symptomatic and asymptomatic cohorts at an institute of higher education. Positive pools were deconvoluted and each individual sample was retested using the TaqPath™ COVID-19 Combo Kit. Both assays target the open reading frame (ORF) 1ab, nucleocapsid (N), and spike (S) gene of the strain that originated in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Qualitative results demonstrated absolute agreement between pooled and deconvoluted samples in both cohorts. Independent t-test performed on C(t) shifts supported an insignificant difference between cohorts with p-values of 0.306 (Orf1ab), 0.147 (N), and 0.052 (S). All negative pools were correctly reported as negative. Pooled PCR testing up to five samples is a valid method for surveillance testing of students and staff in a university setting, especially when the prevalence is expected to be low. Public Library of Science 2022-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9187085/ /pubmed/35687578 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269798 Text en © 2022 Ganz et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ganz, Troy
Sanderson, Sarah
Baush, Connor
Mejia, Melanie
Gandhi, Manoj
Auclair, Jared
Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
title Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
title_full Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
title_fullStr Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
title_full_unstemmed Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
title_short Performance of the TaqMan COVID-19 Pooling Kit for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
title_sort performance of the taqman covid-19 pooling kit for detection of sars-cov-2 in asymptomatic and symptomatic populations
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9187085/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35687578
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269798
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