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Thermal inactivation of COVID‐19 specimens improves RNA quality and quantity
Author(s) -
Hemati Maral,
Soosanabadi Mohsen,
Ghorashi Tahereh,
Ghaffari Hadi,
Vahedi Azadeh,
Sabbaghian Elaheh,
Rasouli Nejad Zahra,
Salati Amir,
Danaei Navid,
Kokhaei Parviz
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of cellular physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.529
H-Index - 174
eISSN - 1097-4652
pISSN - 0021-9541
DOI - 10.1002/jcp.30206
Subject(s) - rna , coronavirus , rna extraction , capsid , virology , reverse transcriptase , bacteriophage ms2 , covid-19 , polymerase chain reaction , real time polymerase chain reaction , biology , chemistry , virus , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , medicine , disease , biochemistry , infectious disease (medical specialty) , coat protein
The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, poses a huge demand for immediate diagnosis. Real‐time reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (rRT‐PCR) of nasopharyngeal (NP) and oropharyngeal (OP) swabs have been used to confirm the clinical diagnosis. To avoid the risk of viral‐exposure of laboratory workers, thermal inactivation is currently recommended but has unknown effects on the accuracy of the rRT‐PCR results. Thirty‐six NP/OP specimens were collected from COVID‐19 patients and subjected to thermal inactivation (60°C for 30 min) or the RNA extraction processes to activate the form. Here, our data showed that the concentration of extracted‐RNA increases upon thermal inactivation compared to the active form ( p = .028). Significantly higher levels of RNA copy number were obtained in inactivated compared to the active samples for both N and ORF1ab genes ( p = .009, p = .032, respectively). Thermal inactivation elevated concentration and copy number of extracted‐RNA, possibly through viral‐capsid degradation and/or nucleoprotein denaturation.