Importance of sample input volume for accurate SARS-CoV-2 qPCR testing.

ABSTRACT: Nucleic acid testing is the most widely used detection method for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Currently, a number of COVID-19 real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qPCR) kits with high sensitivity and specificity are available for SARS-CoV-2 testing. However, these qPCR assays are not always reliable in detecting low viral load samples (Ct-value ≥ 35), resulting in inconclusive or false-negative results. Here, we used a Poisson distribution to illustrate the inconsistent performance of qPCR tests in detecting low viral load samples. From this, we concluded that the false-negative outcomes resulted from the random occurrences of sampling zero target molecules in a single te

SUBMITTER: He Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8820412 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature