Berger SS, Høgberg J, Kuntke F, Obari L, Larsen H. Automated wash and reuse of disposable pipette tips in a SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR diagnostic pipeline.
Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis 2024;
109:116241. [PMID:
38452555 DOI:
10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2024.116241]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Revised: 02/07/2024] [Accepted: 03/01/2024] [Indexed: 03/09/2024]
Abstract
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic led to global shortages in laboratory consumables, in particular for automated PCR. The Technical University of Denmark supported Danish hospitals from 2020 to 2022, conducting SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR on around 10,000 patient samples daily. We encountered shortages of disposable pipette tips used with automated liquid handlers that transferred oropharyngeal swab samples to 96-well microplates before RNA extraction. To enable tip reuse, we developed an automated protocol for washing tips with a 0.5 % sodium hypochlorite solution. This effectively eliminated carry-over of genomic material and the wash solution remained effective when stored in an open reservoir at ambient temperatures for 24 h. A three-day validation setup demonstrated the robustness of the tip wash protocol. Reducing the number of tips used for transferring samples to 96-well microplates from 96 to 8 enabled us to mitigate pipette tip shortages, lower costs, and minimize plastic waste generation.
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