Caputo Valerio, Calvino Giulia, Strafella Claudia, Termine Andrea, Fabrizio Carlo, Trastulli Giulia, Ingrascì Arcangela, Peconi Cristina, Bardini Silvia, Rossini Angelo, Salvia Antonino, Borsellino Giovanna, Battistini Luca, Caltagirone Carlo, Cascella Raffaella, Giardina Emiliano
Genomic Medicine Laboratory UILDM, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179 Rome, Italy.
Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, Tor Vergata University, 00133 Rome, Italy.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2022 Feb 11;12(2):467. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics12020467.
The emergence of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant caused public health concerns worldwide, raising the need for the improvement of rapid monitoring strategies. The present manuscript aimed at providing evidence of the utility of a diagnostic kit for the routine testing of SARS-CoV-2 infection as a cost-effective method for tracking the Omicron variant in Italy. The study was conducted on patients' naso-oropharyngeal-swab-derived RNA samples. These samples were subjected to RT-PCR using the TaqPath COVID-19 RT PCR CE IVD kit. Nonparametric testing and polynomial models fitting were used to compare the spreading of Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants. The samples of interest were correctly amplified and displayed the presence of S gene-target failure, suggesting that these patients carry the Omicron variant. The trend of diffusion was found to be significantly different and more rapid compared with that of the Alpha and Delta variants in our cohorts. Overall, these results highlight that the S gene target failure was a very useful tool for the immediate and inexpensive tracking of Omicron variant in the three weeks from the first detection. Thus, our approach could be used as a first-line screening to reduce the time and costs of monitoring strategies, facilitating the management of preventive and counteracting measures against COVID-19.
奥密克戎SARS-CoV-2变体的出现引起了全球范围内的公共卫生关注，这使得改进快速监测策略变得十分必要。本手稿旨在提供一种诊断试剂盒在意大利作为追踪奥密克戎变体的经济有效方法用于SARS-CoV-2感染常规检测的效用证据。该研究是对患者鼻咽拭子来源的RNA样本进行的。这些样本使用TaqPath COVID-19 RT PCR CE IVD试剂盒进行逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）。采用非参数检验和多项式模型拟合来比较阿尔法、德尔塔和奥密克戎变体的传播情况。感兴趣的样本被正确扩增，并显示出S基因靶点失败，表明这些患者携带奥密克戎变体。在我们的队列中，发现其传播趋势与阿尔法和德尔塔变体相比有显著差异且更为迅速。总体而言，这些结果表明，S基因靶点失败是在首次检测后的三周内对奥密克戎变体进行即时且低成本追踪的非常有用的工具。因此，我们的方法可作为一线筛查手段，以减少监测策略的时间和成本，便于管理针对COVID-19的预防和应对措施。
