AUTHOR=Garcia-Venzor Alfredo , Rueda-Zarazua Bertha , Marquez-Garcia Eduardo , Maldonado Vilma , Moncada-Morales Angelica , Olivera Hiram , Lopez Irma , Zuñiga Joaquin , Melendez-Zajgla Jorge TITLE=SARS-CoV-2 Direct Detection Without RNA Isolation With Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) and CRISPR-Cas12 JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine VOLUME=8 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.627679 DOI=10.3389/fmed.2021.627679 ISSN=2296-858X ABSTRACT=

As to date, more than 49 million confirmed cases of Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) have been reported worldwide. Current diagnostic protocols use qRT-PCR for viral RNA detection, which is expensive and requires sophisticated equipment, trained personnel and previous RNA extraction. For this reason, we need a faster, direct and more versatile detection method for better epidemiological management of the COVID-19 outbreak. In this work, we propose a direct method without RNA extraction, based on the Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-CRISPR associated protein (CRISPR-Cas12) technique that allows the fast detection of SARS-CoV-2 from patient samples with high sensitivity and specificity. We obtained a limit of detection of 16 copies/μL with high specificity and at an affordable cost. The diagnostic test readout can be done with a real-time PCR thermocycler or with the naked eye in a blue-light transilluminator. Our method has been evaluated on a small set of clinical samples with promising results.