Nucleic acid visualization assay for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) by targeting the UpE and N gene.

• Published in: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Main Authors: Pei Huang, Hongli Jin, Yongkun Zhao, Entao Li, Feihu Yan, Hang Chi, Qi Wang, Qiuxue Han, Ruo Mo, Yumeng Song, Jinhao Bi, Cuicui Jiao, Wujian Li, Hongbin He, Hongmei Wang, Aimin Ma, Na Feng, Jianzhong Wang, Tiecheng Wang, Songtao Yang, Yuwei Gao, Xianzhu Xia, Hualei Wang
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
• Subjects: Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009227; https://doaj.org/article/291d82b3047d4a25a1f84e2573f88f8f

Since its first emergence in 2012, cases of infection with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have continued to occur. At the end of January 2020, 2519 laboratory confirmed cases with a case-fatality rate of 34.3% have been reported. Approximately 84% of human cases have been reported in the tropical region of Saudi Arabia. The emergence of MERS-CoV has highlighted need for a rapid and accurate assay to triage patients with a suspected infection in a timely manner because of the lack of an approved vaccine or an effective treatment for MERS-CoV to prevent and control potential outbreaks. In this study, we present two rapid and visual nucleic acid assays that target the MERS-CoV UpE and N genes as a panel that combines reverse transcription recombinase polymerase amplification with a closed vertical flow visualization strip (RT-RPA-VF). This test panel was designed to improve the diagnostic accuracy through dual-target screening after referencing laboratory testing guidance for MERS-CoV. The limit of detection was 1.2×101 copies/μl viral RNA for the UpE assay and 1.2 copies/μl viral RNA for the N assay, with almost consistent with the sensitivity of the RT-qPCR assays. The two assays exhibited no cross-reactivity with multiple CoVs, including the bat severe acute respiratory syndrome related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV), the bat coronavirus HKU4, and the human coronaviruses 229E, OC43, HKU1 and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Furthermore, the panel does not require sophisticated equipment and provides rapid detection within 30 min. This panel displays good sensitivity and specificity and may be useful to rapidly detect MERS-CoV early during an outbreak and for disease surveillance.