A Highly Sensitive Molecular Technique for RNA Virus Detection
Tomasz Rozmyslowicz,
Haruki Arévalo-Romero,
Dareus O. Conover,
Ezequiel M. Fuentes-Pananá,
Moisés León-Juárez,
Glen N. Gaulton
Affiliations
Tomasz Rozmyslowicz
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Haruki Arévalo-Romero
Laboratorio de Inmunología y Microbiología Molecular, División Académica Multidisciplinaria de Jalpa de Méndez, Departamento de Genómica, Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Jalpa de Méndez 86205, Mexico
Dareus O. Conover
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Ezequiel M. Fuentes-Pananá
Unidad de Investigación en Virología y Cáncer, Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez, Ciudad de México 06720, Mexico
Moisés León-Juárez
Laboratorio de Virología Perinatal, Departamento de Inmunobioquímica, Instituto Nacional de Perinatología Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, Ciudad de México 06720, Mexico
Glen N. Gaulton
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Zika (ZIKV) and Chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses are mosquito-transmitted infections, or vector-borne pathogens, that emerged a few years ago. Reliable diagnostic tools for ZIKV and CHIKV—inexpensive, multiplexed, rapid, highly sensitive, and specific point-of-care (POC) systems—are vital for appropriate risk management and therapy. We recently studied a detection system with great success in Mexico (Villahermosa, state of Tabasco), working with human sera from patients infected with those viruses. The research conducted in Mexico validated the efficacy of a novel two-step rapid isothermal amplification technique (RAMP). This approach, which encompasses recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) followed by loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), had been previously established in the lab using lab-derived Zika (ZIKV) and Chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses. Crucially, our findings confirmed that this technique is also effective when applied to human sera samples collected from locally infected individuals in Mexico.
