Abstract
The recent outbreak of human infections caused by SARS-CoV-2, the third zoonotic coronavirus has raised great public health concern globally. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of this novel pathogen posts great challenges not only clinically but also technologically. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and reverse-transcription PCR (RT-PCR) have been the most commonly used molecular methodologies. However, each has their own limitations. In this study, we developed an isothermal, CRISPR-based diagnostic for COVID-19 with near single-copy sensitivity. The diagnostic performances of all three technology platforms were also compared. Our study aimed to provide more insights into the molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2, and also to present a novel diagnostic option for this new emerging virus.
Publication types
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Comparative Study
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Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
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Bacteria / genetics
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Betacoronavirus / genetics*
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COVID-19
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COVID-19 Testing
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CRISPR-Cas Systems / genetics*
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Clinical Laboratory Techniques*
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Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats / genetics
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Coronavirus Infections / diagnosis*
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Coronavirus Infections / genetics*
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Genes, Viral / genetics
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Genome, Viral / genetics
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High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / methods
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Humans
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Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / economics
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Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / methods
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Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / economics
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Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / methods
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Pandemics
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Pneumonia, Viral / diagnosis*
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Pneumonia, Viral / genetics*
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Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods
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SARS-CoV-2
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Sensitivity and Specificity
Grants and funding
This work was supported by the "Peak Project" Scientific Research Special Funding [DFJH2020019], the National Major Science & Technology Project for Control and Prevention of Major Infectious Diseases in China [2017ZX10103004], the Guangdong Science and Technology Department [2018B020241002] and the Guangzhou Science, Technology and Innovation Commission [201803010094]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.