A Highly Sensitive Molecular Technique for RNA Virus Detection

• Published in: Cells (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 13; no. 10; p. 804
• Main Authors: Rozmyslowicz, Tomasz, Arévalo-Romero, Haruki, Conover, Dareus O, Fuentes-Pananá, Ezequiel M, León-Juárez, Moisés, Gaulton, Glen N
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 09-05-2024
• Subjects: Blood & organ donations; Chikungunya; Chikungunya Fever - blood; Chikungunya Fever - diagnosis; Chikungunya Fever - virology; Chikungunya virus; Chikungunya virus - genetics; Chikungunya virus - isolation & purification; Dengue fever; detection; Detectors; diagnostics; Disease management; Disease transmission; Endoplasmic reticulum; Epidemics; Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid; Gene amplification; Genomes; Guillain-Barre syndrome; Health aspects; Humans; Illnesses; Infection; Infections; Kinases; LAMP; Methods; Mexico; Molecular Diagnostic Techniques - methods; Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques - methods; Pathogens; Proteins; Recombinase; RNA; RNA viruses; RNA Viruses - genetics; RNA Viruses - isolation & purification; RNA, Viral - blood; RNA, Viral - genetics; Sensitivity and Specificity; Vaccines; Womens health; Zika; Zika virus; Zika Virus - genetics; Zika Virus - isolation & purification; Zika Virus Infection - blood; Zika Virus Infection - diagnosis; Zika Virus Infection - virology; Mexico; Africa; Chikungunya; detection; diagnostics; LAMP; Zika
• ISSN: 2073-4409; 2073-4409
• DOI: 10.3390/cells13100804

Zika (ZIKV) and Chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses are mosquito-transmitted infections, or vector-borne pathogens, that emerged a few years ago. Reliable diagnostic tools for ZIKV and CHIKV-inexpensive, multiplexed, rapid, highly sensitive, and specific point-of-care (POC) systems-are vital for appropriate risk management and therapy. We recently studied a detection system with great success in Mexico (Villahermosa, state of Tabasco), working with human sera from patients infected with those viruses. The research conducted in Mexico validated the efficacy of a novel two-step rapid isothermal amplification technique (RAMP). This approach, which encompasses recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) followed by loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), had been previously established in the lab using lab-derived Zika (ZIKV) and Chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses. Crucially, our findings confirmed that this technique is also effective when applied to human sera samples collected from locally infected individuals in Mexico.