Pooled RNA extraction and PCR assay for efficient SARS-CoV-2 detection

Roni Ben-Ami; Agnes Klochendler; Matan Seidel; Tal Sido; Ori Gurel-Gurevich; Moran Yassour; Eran Meshorer; Gil Benedek; Irit Fogel; Esther Oiknine-Djian; Asaf Gertler; Zeev Rotstein; Bruno Lavi; Yuval Dor; Dana G Wolf; Maayan Salton; Yotam Drier

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.17.20069062 doi: medRxiv preprint personnel and employees of essential industries. Individual barcoded samples were received at the laboratory, inactivated by lysis buffer, pooled on a Tecan liquid-handling robot, and the pools were processed on a Qiasymphony robot for RNA extraction, and analyzed by RT-PCR. Results were interpreted and samples in positive pools were subsequently individually tested. Note that analysis of pool results requires close attention to indeterminate-result pools, showing a signal at 35 < Ct < 38, as these may contain individual positive samples. Therefore, criteria for retesting pools must be more stringent, e.g. a signal with Ct ~38 would be defined as negative when individual samples are tested, but warrants re-testing of individual samples when encountered in a pool (see Table 1 , batch 3).