Hoteit Rouba, Shammaa Dina, Mahfouz Rami
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, 1107-2020, Lebanon.
Gene Rep. 2016 Sep;4:67-69. doi: 10.1016/j.genrep.2016.04.004. Epub 2016 Apr 16.
Mortality due to MERS-CoV infection is common especially among immunocompromised patients. The pathogenesis and the transmission mode of this virus are still not well understood. The name of the virus is derived from the area of its appearance and the genomic sequence that was used in the development of qRT-PCR assays for MERS-CoV detection was retrieved from the first detected case isolate. The employed assays target various regions including the area upstream of the envelope gene (upE) that is used for screening and the open reading frames (ORF) 1a and 1b used for confirmation.
This study assesses the use of a MERS-CoV specific assay for screening of respiratory samples in anticipation of the possible spread of the virus in the region.
46 respiratory specimens were tested using the qualitative one-step qRT-PCR () kit (PrimerDesign™).
Out of the 46 tested samples, 45 were negative for MERS-CoV and one sample was found MERS-CoV positive.
The () kit is very useful for the screening of suspected respiratory cases in the Middle East area as well as other regions.
中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒（MERS-CoV）感染导致的死亡率很高，尤其是在免疫功能低下的患者中。这种病毒的发病机制和传播方式仍未完全了解。该病毒的名称源于其出现的地区，用于开发检测MERS-CoV的定量逆转录聚合酶链反应（qRT-PCR）检测方法的基因组序列是从首例检测到的病例分离株中获取的。所采用的检测方法针对多个区域，包括用于筛查的包膜基因上游区域（upE）以及用于确认的开放阅读框（ORF）1a和1b。
本研究评估使用MERS-CoV特异性检测方法对呼吸道样本进行筛查，以应对该病毒在该地区可能的传播。
使用定性一步法qRT-PCR（）试剂盒（PrimerDesign™）对46份呼吸道标本进行检测。
在46份检测样本中，45份MERS-CoV检测呈阴性，1份样本MERS-CoV检测呈阳性。
（）试剂盒对于筛查中东地区以及其他地区的疑似呼吸道病例非常有用。
