We have updated our privacy policy to explain how we use your non-public data.
We use cookies to give you a better experience. You can read our cookie policy here.
Last year, pathologist Jeffrey SoRelle, M. D. , and colleagues developed CoVarScan, an immediate COVID-19 check that detects signatures of 8 SARS-CoV-2 virus hot spots. Now, after CoVarScan on more than 4000 patient samples collected at UT Southwestern, the team reports in Clinical Chemistry that its verification is as accurate as other strategies used to diagnose COVID-19 and can effectively differentiate all existing variants of SARS-CoV-2.
“Through this test, we can very temporarily find out which variants exist in the network and whether a new variant is emerging,” said Dr. SoRelle, an assistant professor of pathology and senior author of the study. “This also has implications for individual patients when it comes to variants that respond to treatments. “
The effects of testing at UT Southwestern’s Once Upon a Time Human Genomics Center helped public fitness officials track the spread of COVID-19 in North Texas and make policy decisions based on variant prevalence. Doctors also used the effects for more effective monoclonal antibodies rather than safe strains that infect critical COVID-19 patients.
Although there are a number of other tests for COVID-19, they usually stumble upon a fragment of SARS-CoV-2 genetic curtains or small molecules discovered on the surface of the virus, and do not provide data to identify the variant. In addition, many researchers are concerned that those tests won’t be accurate in finding certain variants, or that they will lack strains in the long run. For which variant of COVID-19 a patient has, scientists usually have to use whole genome sequencing, which is time-consuming and expensive, and relies on complicated apparatus and research to spell out the entire RNA series contained in viruses.
In early 2021, Dr. SoRelle and his colleagues at UT Southwestern attempted to track the extent to which existing tests detected emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2. But they found that sequencing a large number of samples would not be timely or expensive. So they designed their own test, running on the McDermott Center’s Next Generation Sequencing Core, which is part of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development led by Helen Hobbs, M. D. , professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics.
CoVarScan focuses on 8 regions of SARS-CoV-2 that differ between viral variants. It detects small mutations, where the series of RNA building blocks varies, and measures the duration of repetitive genetic regions that tend to grow and shrink like the virus. Evolves. The approach is based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a common strategy in maximum pathology laboratories, to copy and measure RNA at those 8 sites of interest.
To verify the functioning of CoVarScan, Dr. SoRelle’s team performed the verification of more than 4000 SAMPLES OF NASAL SWABS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 COLLECTED AT UT Southwestern from April 2021 to February 2022, from patients with and without symptoms. The checks were validated with a total reference genome sequencing, and doctors used the effects to cure some seriously ill COVID-19 patients.
Compared to whole genome sequencing, CoVarScan had a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 99%. He knew and differentiated the Delta, Mu, Lambda and Omicron variants of COVID-19, and added the BA. 2 edition of Omicron, formerly “stealth Omicron” because it seemed in some tests designed to stumble only with the Omicron strain.
“A common complaint about this type of verification is that it requires constant tuning for new variants, but CoVarScan has needed any adjustment for over a year; it still works very well,” Dr. SoRelle said. “In the future, if we had to adjust it, we could easily climb up to 20 or 30 additional hot spots to the check. “
Dr. SoRelle plans to continue to introduce CoVarScan as an advertising control and has a patent application pending on this work. As the inventor of PCR genotyping control for variants, Dr. SoRelle is entitled to benefit from its use.
Andrew Clark, Zhaohui Wang, Emily Ostman, Hui Zheng, Huiyu Yao, Brandi Cantarel, Mohammed Kanchwala, Chao Xing, Li Chen, Pei Irwin, Yan Xu, Dwight Oliver, Francesca Lee, Jeffrey Gagan are UTSW researchers who contributed to this study. , Laura Filkins, Alagarraju Muthukumar, Jason Park and Ravi Sarode.
Dr. Hobbs holds the 1995 Dallas Heart Ball Chair of Cardiology Research, the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr. , M. D. Distinguished Chair. in Developmental Biology and the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair for the Study of Human Growth and Development. Sarode holds the John H. Childders, M. D. Chair. in Pathology.
Reference: Clark AE, Wang Z, Ostman E, et al. Investigation of multiplexed fragments for the flexible detection of all variants of SARS-CoV-2. Clin Chem. 2022: hvac081. doi: 10. 1093/clinchem/hvac081
This article has been republished based on the following documents. Note: The length and content of the curtains may have been changed. For more information, tap the cited source.