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Vogels CBF, Breban MI, Ott IM, Alpert T, Petrone ME, Watkins AE, Kalinich CC, Earnest R, Rothman JE, Goes de Jesus J, Morales Claro I, Magalhães Ferreira G, Crispim MAE, Singh L, Tegally H, Anyaneji UJ, Hodcroft EB, Mason CE, Khullar G, Metti J, Dudley JT, MacKay MJ, Nash M, Wang J, Liu C, Hui P, Murphy S, Neal C, Laszlo E, Landry ML, Muyombwe A, Downing R, Razeq J, de Oliveira T, Faria NR, Sabino EC, Neher RA, Fauver JR, Grubaugh ND. Multiplex qPCR discriminates variants of concern to enhance global surveillance of SARS-CoV-2. PLoS Biol 2021; 19:e3001236. [PMID: 33961632 PMCID: PMC8133773 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 156] [Impact Index Per Article: 52.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2021] [Revised: 05/19/2021] [Accepted: 04/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
With the emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants that may increase transmissibility and/or cause escape from immune responses, there is an urgent need for the targeted surveillance of circulating lineages. It was found that the B.1.1.7 (also 501Y.V1) variant, first detected in the United Kingdom, could be serendipitously detected by the Thermo Fisher TaqPath COVID-19 PCR assay because a key deletion in these viruses, spike Δ69-70, would cause a "spike gene target failure" (SGTF) result. However, a SGTF result is not definitive for B.1.1.7, and this assay cannot detect other variants of concern (VOC) that lack spike Δ69-70, such as B.1.351 (also 501Y.V2), detected in South Africa, and P.1 (also 501Y.V3), recently detected in Brazil. We identified a deletion in the ORF1a gene (ORF1a Δ3675-3677) in all 3 variants, which has not yet been widely detected in other SARS-CoV-2 lineages. Using ORF1a Δ3675-3677 as the primary target and spike Δ69-70 to differentiate, we designed and validated an open-source PCR assay to detect SARS-CoV-2 VOC. Our assay can be rapidly deployed in laboratories around the world to enhance surveillance for the local emergence and spread of B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chantal B. F. Vogels
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Mallery I. Breban
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Isabel M. Ott
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Tara Alpert
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Mary E. Petrone
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Anne E. Watkins
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Chaney C. Kalinich
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Rebecca Earnest
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Jessica E. Rothman
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Jaqueline Goes de Jesus
- Departamento de Molestias Infecciosas e Parasitarias and Instituto de Medicina Tropical da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Ingra Morales Claro
- Departamento de Molestias Infecciosas e Parasitarias and Instituto de Medicina Tropical da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Giulia Magalhães Ferreira
- Departamento de Molestias Infecciosas e Parasitarias and Instituto de Medicina Tropical da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Laboratório de Virologia, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Myuki A. E. Crispim
- Fundação Hospitalar de Hematologia e Hemoterapia do Amazonas, Manaus, Brazil
| | | | - Lavanya Singh
- KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), School of Laboratory Medicine & Medical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | - Houriiyah Tegally
- KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), School of Laboratory Medicine & Medical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | - Ugochukwu J. Anyaneji
- KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), School of Laboratory Medicine & Medical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | | | - Emma B. Hodcroft
- Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | | | - Gaurav Khullar
- Tempus Labs, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Jessica Metti
- Tempus Labs, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Joel T. Dudley
- Tempus Labs, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | | | - Megan Nash
- Tempus Labs, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
| | - Jianhui Wang
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Chen Liu
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Pei Hui
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Steven Murphy
- Murphy Medical Associates, Greenwich, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Caleb Neal
- Murphy Medical Associates, Greenwich, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Eva Laszlo
- Murphy Medical Associates, Greenwich, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Marie L. Landry
- Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Anthony Muyombwe
- Connecticut State Department of Public Health, Rocky Hill, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Randy Downing
- Connecticut State Department of Public Health, Rocky Hill, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Jafar Razeq
- Connecticut State Department of Public Health, Rocky Hill, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Tulio de Oliveira
- KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), School of Laboratory Medicine & Medical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
| | - Nuno R. Faria
- Departamento de Molestias Infecciosas e Parasitarias and Instituto de Medicina Tropical da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, J-IDEA, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Ester C. Sabino
- Departamento de Molestias Infecciosas e Parasitarias and Instituto de Medicina Tropical da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Richard A. Neher
- Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Joseph R. Fauver
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
| | - Nathan D. Grubaugh
- Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
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Abstract
In recent years, genome-wide association studies have shed light on the genetics of early growth and its links with later-life health outcomes. Large-scale datasets and meta-analyses, combined with recently developed analytical methods, have enabled dissection of the maternal and fetal genetic contributions to variation in birth weight. Additionally, longitudinal approaches have shown differences between the genetic contributions to infant, childhood and adult adiposity. In contrast, studies of adult height loci have shown strong associations with early body length and childhood height. Early growth-associated loci provide useful tools for causal analyses: Mendelian randomization (MR) studies have provided evidence that early BMI and height are causally related to a number of adult health outcomes. We advise caution in the design and interpretation of MR studies of birth weight investigating effects of fetal growth on later-life cardiometabolic disease because birth weight is only a crude indicator of fetal growth, and the choice of genetic instrument (maternal or fetal) will greatly influence the interpretation of the results. Most genetic studies of early growth have to date centered on European-ancestry participants and outcomes measured at a single time-point, so key priorities for future studies of early growth genetics are aggregation of large samples of diverse ancestries and longitudinal studies of growth trajectories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diana L Cousminer
- Division of Human Genetics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Rachel M Freathy
- Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science, University of Exeter Medical School, University of Exeter, Exeter EX2 5DW, UK
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