June 12, 2020

expert reaction to study looking at a SARS-CoV-2 virus test, RT-LAMP, which reports to diagnose samples in 30-45 minutes

A study, published in PLOS ONE, looked at a SARS-CoV-2 virus test, RT-LAMP, which reports to diagnose samples in 30-45 minutes.

Dr Robert Shorten, Chair, Microbiology Professional Committee, Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, said:

“RT-LAMP is a recognised method of detecting the genetic material of infectious microorganisms, such as viruses. It has been shown to be capable of detecting other pathogens, such as Zika and Ebola viruses. It uses similar technology to PCR, which is being widely used in the detection of SARS CoV-2.

“This methodology has several advantages. It can be faster than conventional methods, and it uses much less equipment. As such, it can often be used in settings with limited resources, near the patient, and results can be visualised with the naked eye.

“A limitation of this technology is that it is difficult to perform at large scale as it is not automated.

“The researchers demonstrate that the genetic sequences are specific for SARS CoV-2, but test this against a limited number of other viruses. This study shows that the method can detect genetic material from SARS CoV-2 when this was added to ‘dummy’ samples from volunteers in 19/20 cases.

“However, it also generated 2/20 false positives in negative samples. This may be due to cross reactivity with other viruses or contamination during processing.

“When samples from COVID-19 patients were used (containing actual SARS CoV-2 virus, rather than purified genetic sequences), it was less sensitive, detecting only 4/10.”

‘Rapid detection of novel coronavirus/Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification’ by Laura E. Lamb et al. was published in PLOS ONE at 19:00 UK time on Friday 12 June 2020.

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234682

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.