Fast and highly sensitive screening of PCR products of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 by voltage‐programmed capillary gel electrophoretic separation

Abstract

Fast and highly sensitive detection has become critical to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). However, fast analysis tends to reduce the sensitivity and accuracy of such method. This study is to investigate a fast and highly sensitive screening method for detecting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products of SARS‐CoV‐2 through voltage‐programmed capillary gel electrophoretic separation. By separating and detecting the PCR products of RNA‐dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and spike (S) genes, we have diagnosed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) cases within 4 min using such method with high reliability and accuracy, indicating at least a 7.5‐fold faster than previous COVID‐19 diagnostic methods. The detection limits of RdRp and S genes fragments were 1.34–3.46 pM. The developed method can be used to analyze PCR products with specific DNA sizes as well as detect SARS‐CoV‐2 mutations without losing resolution. Furthermore, it can also be used for the fast analysis of DNA molecules related with various infectious diseases.