A 2-Gene Host Signature for Improved Accuracy of COVID-19 Diagnosis Agnostic to Viral Variants.

ABSTRACT: The continued emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants is one of several factors that may cause false-negative viral PCR test results. Such tests are also susceptible to false-positive results due to trace contamination from high viral titer samples. Host immune response markers provide an orthogonal indication of infection that can mitigate these concerns when combined with direct viral detection. Here, we leverage nasopharyngeal swab RNA-seq data from patients with COVID-19, other viral acute respiratory illnesses, and nonviral conditions (n = 318) to develop support vector machine classifiers that rely on a parsimonious 2-gene host signature to diagnose COVID-19. We find that optimal classifiers include an interferon-stimulated gene that is strongly induced in COVID-19 compared with nonv

SUBMITTER: Albright J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9948727 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature