scholarly journals RT-PCR/MALDI-TOF diagnostic target performance reflects circulating SARS-CoV-2 variant diversity in New York City

Author(s):  
Matthew M. Hernandez ◽  
Radhika Banu ◽  
Ana S. Gonzalez-Reiche ◽  
Brandon Gray ◽  
Paras Shrestha ◽  
...  

AbstractAs severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to circulate, multiple variants of concern (VOC) have emerged. New variants pose challenges for diagnostic platforms since sequence diversity can alter primer/probe binding sites (PBS), causing false-negative results. The Agena MassARRAY® SARS-CoV-2 Panel utilizes reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and mass-spectrometry to detect five multiplex targets across N and ORF1ab genes. Herein, we utilize a dataset of 256 SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens collected between April 11, 2021-August 28, 2021 to evaluate target performance with paired sequencing data. During this timeframe, two targets in the N gene (N2, N3) were subject to the greatest sequence diversity. In specimens with N3 dropout, 69% harbored the Alpha-specific A28095U polymorphism that introduces a 3’-mismatch to the N3 forward PBS and increases risk of target dropout relative to specimens with 28095A (relative risk (RR): 20.02; p<0.0001; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 11.36-35.72). Furthermore, among specimens with N2 dropout, 90% harbored the Delta-specific G28916U polymorphism that creates a 3’-mismatch to the N2 probe PBS and increases target dropout risk (RR: 11.92; p<0.0001; 95% CI: 8.17-14.06). These findings highlight the robust capability of Agena MassARRAY® SARS-CoV-2 Panel target results to reveal circulating virus diversity and underscore the power of multi-target design to capture VOC.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Hernandez ◽  
Radhika Banu ◽  
Ana S. Gonzalez-Reiche ◽  
Adriana van de Guchte ◽  
Zenab Khan ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked rapid development of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics. However, emerging variants pose the risk for target dropout and false-negative results secondary to primer/probe binding site (PBS) mismatches. The Agena MassARRAY SARS-CoV-2 Panel combines RT-PCR and MALDI-TOF mass-spectrometry to probe for five targets across N and ORF1ab genes, which provides a robust platform to accommodate PBS mismatches in divergent viruses. Herein, we utilize a deidentified dataset of 1,262 SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens from Mount Sinai Health System (New York City) from December 2020 through April 2021 to evaluate target results and corresponding sequencing data. Overall, the level of PBS mismatches was greater in specimens with target dropout. Of specimens with N3 target dropout, 57% harbored an A28095T substitution that is highly-specific for the alpha (B.1.1.7) variant of concern. These data highlight the benefit of redundancy in target design and the potential for target performance to illuminate the dynamics of circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants.


Biomedika ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Mustika Sari Hutabarat ◽  
Firdaus Hamid ◽  
Irawaty Djaharuddin ◽  
Alfian Zainuddin ◽  
Rossana Agus ◽  
...  

Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a Gram-positive facultative anaerobic bacterium that is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. But the lack of reporting of disease by this bacterium in Indonesia, one of the causes is because the diagnosis of pneumococcal infection is often clinically not typical and conventional methods which are still the standard gold method often give false-negative results. So the purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of culture and molecular diagnostic methods using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique in detecting Streptococcus pneumoniae in sputum clinical samples using the Autolysin (LytA) gene which is a virulence factor of this bacterium. 57 isolates from 60 samples were confirmed as Streptococcus sp through microscopic identification, culture, and biochemical tests. Then the sensitivity test with an optochin test of 9 (9%) compared the results descriptively with the PCR technique using the Autolysin A (LytA) gene which was obtained more sensitive by 15 (25%).


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 713-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary A Wood ◽  
Austin Nguyen ◽  
Adam J Struck ◽  
Kyle Ellrott ◽  
Abhinav Nellore ◽  
...  

Abstract Motivation The vast majority of tools for neoepitope prediction from DNA sequencing of complementary tumor and normal patient samples do not consider germline context or the potential for the co-occurrence of two or more somatic variants on the same mRNA transcript. Without consideration of these phenomena, existing approaches are likely to produce both false-positive and false-negative results, resulting in an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the cancer neoepitope landscape. We developed neoepiscope chiefly to address this issue for single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and insertions/deletions (indels). Results Herein, we illustrate how germline and somatic variant phasing affects neoepitope prediction across multiple datasets. We estimate that up to ∼5% of neoepitopes arising from SNVs and indels may require variant phasing for their accurate assessment. neoepiscope is performant, flexible and supports several major histocompatibility complex binding affinity prediction tools. Availability and implementation neoepiscope is available on GitHub at https://github.com/pdxgx/neoepiscope under the MIT license. Scripts for reproducing results described in the text are available at https://github.com/pdxgx/neoepiscope-paper under the MIT license. Additional data from this study, including summaries of variant phasing incidence and benchmarking wallclock times, are available in Supplementary Files 1, 2 and 3. Supplementary File 1 contains Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Figures 1 and 2, and descriptions of Supplementary Tables 2–8. Supplementary File 2 contains Supplementary Tables 2–6 and 8. Supplementary File 3 contains Supplementary Table 7. Raw sequencing data used for the analyses in this manuscript are available from the Sequence Read Archive under accessions PRJNA278450, PRJNA312948, PRJNA307199, PRJNA343789, PRJNA357321, PRJNA293912, PRJNA369259, PRJNA305077, PRJNA306070, PRJNA82745 and PRJNA324705; from the European Genome-phenome Archive under accessions EGAD00001004352 and EGAD00001002731; and by direct request to the authors. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Sexual Health ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Toby ◽  
Pamela Saunders ◽  
Michelle Cole ◽  
Vlad Grigorjev ◽  
Sarah Alexander ◽  
...  

porA pseudogene-negative Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates produce false-negative results when examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with porA pseudogene targets. In the present study, 533 representative gonococcal isolates received in 2011 via the Gonococcal Resistance to Antimicrobials Surveillance Program were examined to determine the prevalence of porA-negative isolates. Less than 0.4% (2/533) of isolates were found to be reproducibly negative with the porA real-time PCR but were confirmed as N. gonorrhoeae with molecular, biochemical and immunological confirmatory tests. Sequencing revealed both isolates contained the Neisseria meningitidis porA gene. Low prevalence indicates that although these isolates do not present a major public health problem, microbiologists should remain vigilant.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Jacobson ◽  
Stina Englund ◽  
András Ballagi-Pordány

Lawsonia intracellularis is an intracellular organism that causes proliferative enteritis in pigs. This bacterium is difficult to culture, and antemortem demonstration of the microbe is therefore often performed on fecal samples by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Polymerase chain reaction is sensitive and specific, but inhibitory factors in feces might cause false-negative results. This article describes the construction and use of an internal standard, a mimic. The mimic is amplified by the same primers as those used for L. intracellularis DNA and thus could indicate false-negative results in clinical samples. The amplicon was clearly visible when as few as 10 mimic molecules were added per amplification reaction and when no inhibitors were present. When fecal samples were spiked with the mimic, the detection limit was 102 molecules per PCR. Sixty clinical samples, 20 from wild boars, 20 from growing pigs with diarrhea, and 20 from pigs without diarrhea, were prepared by a boiling procedure and subjected to PCR together with 103 mimic molecules. Nine samples were positive, of which 7 originated from pigs with diarrhea and 2 from pigs without diarrhea. In 14 samples from wild boars, in 8 samples from pigs without diarrhea, and in 3 samples from pigs with diarrhea, neither the mimic nor the target DNA was visible. This indicated the presence of inhibitors in these samples. It is concluded that the mimic can be used as an internal control in the diagnosis of L. intracellularis to indicate inhibition of PCR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-410
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Bahreini ◽  
Rezvan Najafi ◽  
Razieh Amini ◽  
Salman Khazaei ◽  
Saeid Bashirian

As the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic spreads rapidly, there is need for a diagnostic test with high accuracy to detect infected individuals especially those without symptoms. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is a common molecular test for diagnosing SARS-CoV-2. If some factors are not taken into consideration when performing this test, it can have a relatively large number of false negative results. In this article, we discuss important considerations that could lead to false negative test reduction. Key words: • SARS-CoV-2 • COVID-19 • Real time polymerase chain reaction • RT-PCR test • Diagnosis • False negatives • Genetics • Emerging disease   Copyright © 2020 Bahreini et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0)which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in this journal, is properly cited.


Author(s):  
Marco Marando ◽  
Adriana Tamburello ◽  
Pietro Gianella

On 11 March 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic and global health emergency. We describe the clinical features and role of ultra-low-dose chest computed tomography (CT) and bronchoscopy in the diagnosis of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In our patient, who was highly suggestive clinically and radiologically for COVID-19, we had two false-negative results for nasopharyngeal and oral swab reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Eventually, we confirmed the diagnosis using bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac J. Núñez ◽  
Pablo F. Belaunzarán-Zamudio ◽  
Yanink Caro-Vega

Underestimation of the number of cases during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a constant concern worldwide. Case confirmation is based on identification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA using real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in clinical samples. However, these tests have suboptimal sensitivity, especially during the early and late course of infection. Using open data, we estimated that among 1 343 730 people tested in Mexico since February 27th, there were 838 377 (95% CL 734 605 - 1 057 164) cases, compared with 604 376 considering only positive tests. ICU admissions and deaths were around 16% and 9% higher than reported. Thus, we show that accounting for the sensitivity of SARS-Cov-2 RT-PCR diagnostic tests is a simple way to improve estimations for the true number of COVID-19 cases in tested people, particularly in high-prevalence populations. This could aid to better inform public health measures and reopening policies.


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