Reliable Sample Preservation Solution: The Critical First Step in Accurate Detection of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

The unprecedented global pandemic known as COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 has a profound impact on human life and health, economy and society. Since the outbreak, tremendous effort has been put forth to expand our capacity to diagnose this deadly virus, because accurate detection is essential to effectively combat the epidemic. Numbers of reports have focused on whether the detection methods are sensitive and accurate enough [1]. Little information on the critical first step of detection, sample preservation, is available. At present, there are various of virus Preservation Solutions (PS) on the market, which are used for the preservation of swab samples in nucleic acid detection of SARS-CoV-2. When screening or testing for SARS-CoV-2, pharyngeal swab or nasal swab should be put into PS. Before nucleic acid extraction, the sample may stay in the protective solution for several hours or days. If the sample is not effectively protected in the preservation solution, resulting in the degradation of virus nucleic acid then false negative will occur in the downstream detection process [2]. Therefore, the protection ability to virus RNA of PS is critical important to the reliability of nucleic acid detection results.