The next‐generation coronavirus diagnostic techniques with particular emphasis on the SARS‐CoV‐2

Abstract

The potential zoonotic coronaviruses (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2) are of global health concerns. Early diagnosis is the milestone in their mitigation, control, and eradication. Many diagnostic techniques are showing great success and have many advantages, such as the rapid turnover of the results, high accuracy, and high specificity and sensitivity. However, some of these techniques have several pitfalls if samples were not collected, processed, and transported in the standard ways and if these techniques were not practiced with extreme caution and precision. This may lead to false-negative/positive results. This may affect the downstream management of the affected cases. These techniques require regular finetuning, upgrading, and optimization. The continuous evolution of new strains and viruses belong to the coronaviruses is hampering the success of many classical techniques. There are urgent needs for next generations of coronaviruses diagnostic assays that overcome these pitfalls. This new generation of diagnostic tests should be able to do simultaneous, multiplex, and high-throughput detection of various coronavirus in one reaction. Furthermore, the development of novel assays and techniques that enable the in situ detection of the virus on the environmental samples, especially air, water, and surfaces, should be given considerable attention in the future. These approaches will have a substantial positive impact on the mitigation and eradication of coronaviruses, including the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

The pivotal roles of the host immune response in the fine-tuning the infection and the development of the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2

“… 112 On the other hand, the new mutants may affect the sensitivity of the already developed diagnostic assays against SARS-CoV-2. 113 Several studies are recently showing that some of the mRNA-1273 vaccine-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines may tolerate these escape mutations and are able to induce a potent reduction in the virus infectivity. 114 We believe the gold standard is the vaccination of the individuals against the homologous strains and variants of the virus is for achieving the required immune response; thus, protection against the natural infection may be granted.…”

Updates on the Biofunctionalization of Gold Nanoparticles for the Rapid and Sensitive Multiplatform Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Virus and Its Proteins: From Computational Models to Validation in Human Samples

“…Unfortunately, commercial LFAs have lower sensitivity than PCRs and false negative results are often obtained at low viral loads. Therefore, improved detection techniques that are low-cost, selective, and provide reproducible results are urgently needed [7][8][9].…”

Evaluation of recombinase-based isothermal amplification assays for point-of-need detection of SARS-CoV-2 in resource-limited settings

“…A handful of direct techniques, including virus isolation, plaque assay, electron microscopy (EM) and Immuno-EM are available for diagnosis of SARS-Cov-2 infection/ COVID-19. However, considering the superior sensitivity, specificity and high-throughput capacity of real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (real-time RT-PCR), this method has become the gold standard for detection (Hemida, 2021). Moreover, the quantitative ability of the method has also been exploited for prognosis (Ulinici et al, 2021).…”