Prediction of Symptomatic Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection by Quantitative Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction Normalized to International Units

Diego R Hijano; Zhengming Gu; Jessica Brazelton; Haiqing Zhu; Sri Suganda; Heather L Glasgow; Himani Darji; Li Tang; Thomas P Fabrizio; Kim J Allison; E Kaitlynn Allen; SJTRC Study Team; Aditya H Gaur; Joshua Wolf; Paul G Thomas; Richard J Webby; Randall T Hayden

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac490

Prediction of Symptomatic Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection by Quantitative Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction Normalized to International Units

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Sep 21;9(10):ofac490. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac490. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Authors

Diego R Hijano¹, Zhengming Gu², Jessica Brazelton², Haiqing Zhu², Sri Suganda², Heather L Glasgow², Himani Darji³, Li Tang³, Thomas P Fabrizio¹, Kim J Allison¹, E Kaitlynn Allen⁴; SJTRC Study Team; Aditya H Gaur¹, Joshua Wolf¹, Paul G Thomas⁴, Richard J Webby¹, Randall T Hayden²

Collaborators

SJTRC Study Team:
Jeremie H Estepp, Maureen A McGargill, Motomi Mori, Stacey Schultz-Cherry, Hana Hakim, Elaine I Tuomanen

Affiliations

¹ Departments of Infectious Diseases, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
² Departments of Pathology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
³ Departments of Biostatistics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
⁴ Departments of Immunology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

Abstract

Although numerous studies have evaluated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection using cycle threshold (Ct) values as a surrogate of viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) load, few studies have used standardized, quantitative methods. We validated a quantitative SARS-CoV-2 digital polymerase chain reaction assay normalized to World Health Organization International Units and correlated viral RNA load with symptoms and disease severity.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; digital PCR; international units; viral load.