Molecular detections of coronavirus: current and emerging methodologies

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Seven coronavirus species have been identified that can infect humans. While human coronavirus infections had been historically associated with only mild respiratory symptoms similar to the common cold, three coronaviruses identified since 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and SARS-CoV-2, cause life-threatening severe respiratory syndromes. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 has triggered a worldwide health emergency. Due to the lack of effective drugs and vaccination, rapid and reliable detection is of vital importance to control coronavirus epidemics/pandemics.

Area covered

A literature search was performed in Pubmed covering the detections and diagnostics of SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2. This review summarized the current knowledge of established and emerging methods for coronavirus detection. The characteristics of different diagnostic approaches were described, and the strengths and weaknesses of each method were analyzed and compared. In addition, future trends in the field of coronavirus detection were also discussed.

Expert opinion

Nucleic acid–based RT-PCR is the current golden-standard of coronavirus detection, while immunoassays provide history of coronavirus infection besides diagnostic information. Integrated high-throughput system holds the great potential and is the trend of future detection and diagnosis of virus infection.

KEYWORDS:

• Coronavirus
• molecular detection
• diagnosis
• COVID-19
• SARS-CoV-2
• RT-PCR
• LAMP
• ELISA
• LFA
• CRISPR

Abbreviations

SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome	=
MERS: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome	=
SARS-CoV-2: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Type 2	=
COVID-19: Coronavirus Disease 2019	=
RT-PCR: Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction	=
LAMP: Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification	=
CRISPR: Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats	=
ELISA: Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay	=
LFA: Lateral Flow Assay	=
Mpro: Main Protease	=
POCT: Point of Care Test	=

Article highlights

• Summarization of current nucleic acid-based and protein-based methods of coronavirus detections.

• Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of current molecular detection strategies for coronaviruses.

• Discussion of the future trends in the field of coronavirus detection.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

Mingkun Diao, wrote and revised the manuscript. Lang Lang, wrote and revised the manuscript. Juan Feng, critically revised the manuscript article. Junqing Hu, revised the manuscript. Rongsong Li, conceived wrote and revised the manuscript. Lang Lang and Mingkun Diao contributed equally to this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Special anti-COVID-19 Project Fund of Guangdong Provincial Education Department 2020KZDZX1214 (RL), Natural Science Foundation of Top Talent of SZTU 2020102 (RL), the Shenzhen Natural Science Foundation JCYJ20190813141001745 (RL), the Startup Research Fund of Shenzhen Technology University (RL), and the Shenzhen Pengcheng Scholar Program (JH).