Pre-analytical properties of different respiratory viruses for PCR-based detection: Comparative analysis of sampling devices and sample stabilization solutions

N Biotechnol. 2023 Dec 23:S1871-6784(23)00073-0. doi: 10.1016/j.nbt.2023.12.005. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTAfter the decline of the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems were challenged by the simultaneous prevalence of different respiratory viruses causing a wide overlap in symptoms. This increased the demand for multi-virus diagnostic tests which require suitable pre-analytical workflow solutions in order to receive valid diagnostic results. In this context, the effects of specimen storage duration and temperature on the RNA/DNA copy number stability of influenza A/B, RSV A/B, SARS-CoV-2 and adenovirus were examined for four commercially available transport swab systems and saliva collection devices. The respiratory viruses were more stable in the saliva collection devices than in the transport swab systems when stored at RT or 37°C for up to 96h. Moreover, no differences between viral nucleic acid stability of enveloped and non-enveloped viruses were observed. The infectivity of all enveloped viruses could be inactivated by the saliva collection device from PreAnalytiX. The Norgen saliva device completely inactivated influenza A/B, while RSV A/B were partially inactivated. The non-enveloped adenovirus was inactivated by a reduction factor of 10E+4 in both saliva collection devices. All respiratory viruses remained infectious in the transport swab systems. Two possible transport medium additives were tested which inactivated or strongly reduced viral replication of tested ...
Source: New Biotechnology - Category: Biotechnology Authors: Source Type: research