Development of rapid and affordable virus-mimicking artificial positive controls

Abstract

A major bottleneck in the development of detection assays is the availability of positive controls. Their acquisition can be problematic; their maintenance is expensive and without them assays cannot be validated. Herein we present a novel strategy for the development of virus-mimicking positive controls (ViMAPCs). The time between design and application is less than five days, unlike alternatives which normally take several weeks to obtain and implement. The ViMAPCs provide a realistic representation of natural infection unlike alternatives and allow for an effortless recognition of lab-based contamination. The feasibility and adaptability of the strategy was evaluated using several RNA and DNA viruses. ViMAPCs can be used in diagnostics labs but also in monitoring of pathogen outbreaks where rapid response is of utmost importance.