A simple magnetic nanoparticles-based viral RNA extraction method for efficient detection of SARS-CoV-2

Zhen Zhao; Haodong Cui; Wenxing Song; Xiaoling Ru; Wenhua Zhou; Xuefeng Yu

As previously described, one of the most serious disadvantages of traditional columnbased extraction approaches is the difficulties in automation. Because no centrifugation steps are required, MNPs-based methods allow fully automated nucleic acid purification, which is highly important in current SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis. Therefore, the feasibility of automating viral RNA extraction procedure based on our pcMNPs was subsequently evaluated. A commercialized magnetic rods-based nucleic acid purification system was used. An automated programme was set according to the manual protocol (Figure4A). During the extraction process, although the shaking pattern of magnetic rods was set at the most vigorous level, no breakage or leakage of pcMNPs were observed, since the eluted solution are colourless and transparent (FigureS4). As shown in Figure4B, the amplification curve of the automated sample is very close to that of the positive control and manually performed Direct RT-PCR samples, which suggests that our pcMNPs-based method is highly suitable for the automated high throughput viral RNA extraction. author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.