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is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint .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 each of the pools that contained one or more positive samples was found to be positive, and all the pools that contained only negative samples were found to be negative (Figure 1) . Of the 5 pools which contained one individual sample with an "indeterminate" result (in each pool), one was found to be negative suggesting potential yet negligible loss of sensitivity. 20, 21, 23) , and 4 out of 5 pools containing a single indeterminate sample detected as indeterminate (pools 16, 17, 18, 19, 22) ; Pools containing 1-2 samples with low amount of SARS-CoV-2 are detected at a similar Ct (pools [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] , showing clinical sensitivity is retained and the risk of false negatives is minimal. UD= Undetected.