1. Comparison of different sequencing techniques for identification of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern with multiplex real-time PCR.
- Author
-
Diyanath Ranasinghe, Tibutius Thanesh Pramanayagam Jayadas, Deshni Jayathilaka, Chandima Jeewandara, Osanda Dissanayake, Dinuka Guruge, Dinuka Ariyaratne, Dumni Gunasinghe, Laksiri Gomes, Ayesha Wijesinghe, Ruwan Wijayamuni, and Gathsaurie Neelika Malavige
- Subjects
Medicine ,Science - Abstract
As different SARS-CoV-2 variants emerge and with the continuous evolvement of sub lineages of the delta variant, it is crucial that all countries carry out sequencing of at least >1% of their infections, in order to detect emergence of variants with higher transmissibility and with ability to evade immunity. However, due to limited resources as many resource poor countries are unable to sequence adequate number of viruses, we compared to usefulness of a two-step commercially available multiplex real-time PCR assay to detect important single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the variants and compared the sensitivity, accuracy and cost effectiveness of the Illumina sequencing platform and the Oxford Nanopore Technologies' (ONT) platform. 138/143 (96.5%) identified as the alpha and 36/39 (92.3%) samples identified as the delta variants due to the presence of lineage defining SNPs by the multiplex real time PCR, were assigned to the same lineage by either of the two sequencing platforms. 34/37 of the samples sequenced by ONT had
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF