A streamlined approach to rapidly detect SARS-CoV-2 infection, avoiding RNA extraction

Stefania Marzinotto; Catia Mio; Adriana Cifu'; Roberto Verardo; Corrado Pipan; Claudio Schneider; Francesco Curcio

Since the outbreak of the newly appeared severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused coronavirus disease , the demonstration of the virus presence by nasopharyngeal swabs and subsequent molecular analysis of viral Nucleic Acid (NA) has been the preferred diagnostic method. Several NA automated analytical molecular systems are available, which, although having the advantage of obtaining a pure product of the highest quality, are expensive and greatly lengthen the analysis procedures. More importantly, recently the ability of manufacturers of reagents for molecular diagnostics to meet the increasing demand has progressively diminished. In particular, the main limitation is represented by the shortage of NA extraction kits. Since the demonstration of the virus in the samples is the only way to really indicate the patient' infectiveness, this shortage risks to greatly impair our ability to limit the spreading of the pandemic with tragic consequences. In addition, even when reagents are available, NA isolation represents a significant part of the analytical protocol; eliminating this step will increase the productivity of laboratories and decrease the cost of testing.