Objective
Reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) has been validated for diagnosis of several viral infections. However, its diagnostic accuracy in detecting SARS-CoV-2 in real-life clinical settings remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of RT-LAMP compared to reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) over the disease course of COVID-19.
Methods
A total of 124 nasopharyngeal swab samples obtained from 24 COVID-19 patients were tested by RT-LAMP and RT-qPCR. Sensitivities and specificities of RT-LAMP compared with RT-qPCR were analyzed as a function of time from onset.
Results
Up to the 9th day after onset, the RT-LAMP had positivity of 92.8%, and the sensitivity and specificity compared with RT-qPCR was 100%. After the 10th day of onset, however, the positivity of RT-LAMP decreased to less than 25%, and concordance of positivity between the two methods was below 60%. The limit of detection of RT-LAMP was 6.7 copies/reaction.
Conclusions
Until the 9th day after the onset of symptoms, RT-LAMP had the same diagnostic accuracy as RT-qPCR. These finding suggest that RT-LAMP can be used as a diagnostic tool for COVID-19 as an alternative to RT-qPCR in the acute symptomatic phase of COVID-19.
Approximately 1 percent of healthy individuals carry human herpesvirus-6 within a host chromosome. This is referred to as chromosomally integrated herpesvirus-6 (CIHHV-6). In this study, we investigated the chromosomal integration site in six individuals harboring CIHHV-6B. Using FISH, we found that HHV-6B signals are consistently located at the telomeric region. The proximal endpoints of the integrated virus were mapped at one of two telomere-repeat-like sequences (TRSs) within the DR-R in all cases. In two cases, we isolated junction fragments between the viral TRS and human telomere repeats. The distal endpoints were mapped at the distal TRS in all cases. The size of the distal TRS was found to be ~5 kb which is sufficient to fulfill cellular telomeric functions. We conclude that the viral TRS in the DR regions fulfill dual functions for CIHHV-6: homology-mediated integration into the telomeric region of the chromosome and neo-telomere formation that is then stably transmitted.
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