SARS-CoV-2 detection from nasopharyngeal swab samples without RNA extraction

Carolina Beltrán-Pavez; Chantal L. Márquez; Gabriela Muñoz; Fernando Valiente‐Echeverría; Aldo A. Gaggero; Ricardo Soto‐Rifo; Gonzalo P. Barriga

doi:10.1101/2020.03.28.013508

Molecular BiologybioRxivMar 28, 2020

Preprint

SARS-CoV-2 detection from nasopharyngeal swab samples without RNA extraction

Carolina Beltrán-Pavez iD, Chantal L. Márquez iD, Gabriela Muñoz, Fernando Valiente‐Echeverría iD, Aldo A. Gaggero iD, Ricardo Soto‐Rifo iD, Gonzalo P. Barriga iD

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has reached more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Given the large requirement of SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis and considering that RNA extraction kits are in short supply, we investigated whether two commercial RT-qPCR kits were compatible with direct SARS-CoV-2 detection from nasopharyngeal swab samples. We show that one of the tested kits is fully compatible with direct SARS-CoV-2 detection suggesting that omission of an RNA extraction step should be considered in SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.

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