Research progress in laboratory detection of SARS-CoV-2

Wang, Hao-jia; Xiang, Yang-hui; Hu, Rui; Ji, Rui; Wang, Yu-ping

BACKGROUND: Nucleic acid testing is a reliable method for diagnosing viral infection in clinical samples. However, when the number of cases is huge and there are individual differences in the virus itself, the probability of false-negative results increases. With the advancement in research on the new coronavirus, new detection technologies that use serum-specific antibodies as detection targets have been developed. These detection technologies have high efficiency and shorter turnaround time, which ultimately shortens the time required for diagnosis. This article summarizes the methods that have been reported to date for the detection of the new coronavirus and discusses their principles and technical characteristics. AIMS: Compare the advantages and disadvantages of various SARS-CoV-2 detection methods and analyze their principles. METHODS: Searched reports on SARS-CoV-2 detection methods published so far, extracted the data and analyzed them. Use the primer blast function of NCBI to analyze the primers used in qRT-PCR detection. RESULTS: The detection sensitivity was the highest when nucleocapsid protein gene was used as the target, reaching 96.6%. The detection efficiency of the remaining targets ranged from 66.7% to 96.0%. Various new detection methods, like Serum specific antibody detection, can speed up the test time. However, due to the complexity of the method and higher testing requirements, it seems that it cannot be used as a complete replacement for qRT-PRC testing. CONCLUSIONS: With the advancement of technology and the improvement of methods, the detection methods of SARSCoV-2 have become more mature. These advances provided great help to the detection of SARS-CoV-2.