PLoS Pathogens (Aug 2020)

Development and evaluation of a rapid CRISPR-based diagnostic for COVID-19.

  • Tieying Hou,
  • Weiqi Zeng,
  • Minling Yang,
  • Wenjing Chen,
  • Lili Ren,
  • Jingwen Ai,
  • Ji Wu,
  • Yalong Liao,
  • Xuejing Gou,
  • Yongjun Li,
  • Xiaorui Wang,
  • Hang Su,
  • Bing Gu,
  • Jianwei Wang,
  • Teng Xu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008705
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16, no. 8
p. e1008705

Abstract

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The recent outbreak of human infections caused by SARS-CoV-2, the third zoonotic coronavirus has raised great public health concern globally. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of this novel pathogen posts great challenges not only clinically but also technologically. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and reverse-transcription PCR (RT-PCR) have been the most commonly used molecular methodologies. However, each has their own limitations. In this study, we developed an isothermal, CRISPR-based diagnostic for COVID-19 with near single-copy sensitivity. The diagnostic performances of all three technology platforms were also compared. Our study aimed to provide more insights into the molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2, and also to present a novel diagnostic option for this new emerging virus.