Isothermal amplification‐based assays for rapid and sensitive detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2: Opportunities and recent developments

Maiti, Biswajit; Anupama, Karanth Padyana; Rai, Praveen; Karunasagar, Indrani; Karunasagar, Iddya

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is a global pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). To date, the virus has been detected in 219 countries of the world. Therefore, managing the disease becomes the priority, in which detecting the presence of the virus is a crucial step. Presently, real‐time RT polymerase chain reaction (RT‐qPCR) is considered a gold standard nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT). The test protocol of RT‐qPCR is complicated, places high demands on equipment, testing reagents, research personnel skills and is expensive. Therefore, simpler point‐of‐care (POC) tests are needed to accelerate clinical decision‐making and take some of the workload from centralized test laboratories. Various isothermal amplification‐based assays have been developed for the sensitive detection of different microorganisms, and recently some of them have been applied for detection of SARS‐CoV‐2. These do not require any programable thermocycler, can produce the results in a single temperature, and therefore, are considered simple. Unlike RT‐qPCR, these methods are highly sensitive, specific, less time‐consuming, simple and affordable, and can be used as POC diagnostic kit for COVID‐19. In this review, we have discussed the potential of isothermal amplification‐based assays as an alternative to RT‐qPCR for the detection of SARS‐CoV‐2.