BACKGROUND: Current diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection relies on RNA purification prior to amplification. Typical extraction methods limit the processing speed and turnaround time for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing.
METHODS: Here, we applied reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification directly onto human clinical swabs samples to amplify the RNA from SARS-CoV-2 swab samples after processing with chelating resin.
RESULTS: By testing our method on 64 samples, we managed to develop an RT-LAMP assay with 95.9% sensitivity (95% CI 86 to 99.5%) and 100% specificity (95% CI 78.2-100%).
CONCLUSION: The entire process including sample processing can be completed in approximately 50 min. This method has promising potential to be applied as a fast, simple and inexpensive diagnostic tool for the detection of SARS-CoV-2.
* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.