文献类型： 外文期刊

作者： Li, Rong ¹ ; Zhu, Zaobing ³ ; Guo, Yongkun ¹ ; Yang, Litao ¹ ;

作者机构： 1.Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Sch Life Sci & Biotechnol, Joint Int Res Lab Metab & Dev Sci, Shanghai 200240, Peoples R China

2.Naval Med Univ, Shanghai Changhai Hosp, Dept Neurol, Shanghai 200433, Peoples R China

3.Jiangsu Acad Agr Sci, Inst Plant Protect, Nanjing 210014, Peoples R China

4.Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Yazhou Bay Inst Deepsea Scitech, Sanya 572025, Peoples R China

关键词： SARS-CoV-2; droplet digital PCR; quadruplex assay

期刊名称：INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES （ 影响因子：4.9； 五年影响因子：5.6 ）

ISSN： 1661-6596

年卷期： 2024 年 25 卷 15 期

页码：

收录情况： SCI

摘要： The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the rapid global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) since early 2020, has highlighted the need for sensitive and reliable diagnostic methods. Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) has demonstrated superior performance over the gold-standard reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) in detecting SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we explored the development of a multiplex ddPCR assay that enables sensitive quantification of SARS-CoV-2, which could be utilized for antiviral screening and the monitoring of COVID-19 patients. We designed a quadruplex ddPCR assay targeting four SARS-CoV-2 genes and evaluated its performance in terms of specificity, sensitivity, linearity, reproducibility, and precision using a two-color ddPCR detection system. The results showed that the quadruplex assay had comparable limits of detection and accuracy to the simplex ddPCR assays. Importantly, the quadruplex assay demonstrated significantly improved performance for samples with low viral loads and ambiguous results compared to the standard qRT-PCR approach. The developed multiplex ddPCR represents a valuable alternative and complementary tool for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 and potentially other pathogens in various application scenarios beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic. The improved sensitivity and reliability of this assay could contribute to more effective disease monitoring and antiviral screening during the ongoing public health crisis.