title: Quantitation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus genome by real-time polymerase chain reaction assay using minor groove binder DNA probe technology.
abstract: The ability to rapidly recognize severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) as a cause of infections is critical to quickly limiting further spread of the disease. A rapid, sensitive, and specific laboratory diagnostic test is needed to confirm outbreaks of SARS-CoV infection and distinguish it from other diseases that can cause similar clinical symptoms. An improved TaqMan technology using minor groove binder (MGB) probes was used to detect and quantify SARS-CoV in suspected patients. SARS-CoV primers and probe were designed based on the open reading frame 1b sequence, which encodes coronavirus replicase protein. A linear standard curve with R2 > 0.99 was obtained, and the threshold sensitivity was 10 genome equivalents per reaction. Interassay coefficients of variation were 1.73 to 2.72%, indicating good reproducibility of this method. A total of 228 specimens from 151 suspected patients were quantified by this method, 13 specimens from 6 patients were positive with viral load range from 362 to 36,240,000 genome equivalents/mL. In conclusion, the high sensitivity and reproducibility of the real-time polymerase chain reaction SARS-CoV RNA quantitation using MGB probe allowed the screening of large numbers of clinical samples.
authors.affiliation: Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Hsi-Hsun
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Shiow-Jen
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yung-Ching
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Susan Shin-Jung
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Chun-Kai
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.forename: Yao-Shen
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Shue-Ren
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Wann
authors.forename: Yi-Li
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Shih
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D015342:DNA Probes / Q000235:genetics; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006801:Humans; D015336:Molecular Probe Techniques; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D045473:Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D045169:Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D015342:DNA Probes; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004279:DNA, Viral