REVIEW ARTICLE


Current and Emerging Technologies for the Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2



Davoud Afshar1, 2, Solmaz Ohadian Moghadam3, Siamak Heidarzadeh1, Fatemeh Fardsanei4, Maniya Arshadi5, Reza Ranjbar6, *
1 Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran
2 Zanjan Metabolic Diseases Research Center, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran
3 UroOncology Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
4 Division of Microbiology, Department of Pathobiology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
5 Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Health Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
6 Molecular Biology Research Center, Systems Biology and Poisonings Institute, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran


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Creative Commons License
© 2021 Afshar et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at Molecular Biology Research Center, Systems Biology and Poisonings Institute, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Tel/Fax: +98-21-88039883; E-mail: ranjbarre@gmail.com


Abstract

Currently, there are numerous under development or developed assays with various sensitivities and specificities for diagnosis of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved several detection protocols based on real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) and the reliability of tests to detect the N, S, or RdRp/Hel genes of the SARS-Cov-2 virus has also investigated. Among these targets, COVID-19-RdRp/Hel targets represented the highest sensitivity. Reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) has also been developed to rapidly and efficiently amplify RNA under isothermal conditions. Other isothermal amplification approaches such as nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA), recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA), and rolling circle amplification (RCA) have also been reported for detecting coronaviruses but like LAMP assay. Different serological tests, including neutralization tests, immunofluorescent (IFA), enzyme-linked immunosorbent (ELISA), and western blotting assays, are available. Point-of-care tests (POCT) are emerging to detect the virus genome, IgG, or IgM antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. The advent of more sensitive, cheaper, and easier-to-perform diagnostic tests seems to be a fundamental prerequisite to improve the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection. Herein, we reviewed several commercially available diagnostic methods used in many clinical laboratories to detect COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19, Detection methods, Real-time reverse transcription PCR, LAMP assay, CRISPRcas9, Bronchoalveolar Lavage.