Gene

Coronavirus

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak

Sars virus

Biology

Betacoronavirus

Virology

Loop-mediated isothermal amplification

Computer science

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Outbreak

Environmental health

RNA extraction

Computational biology

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Genetics

Population

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

False positive paradox

Coronavirus Infections

Medicine

Pandemic

Disease

Machine learning

Pathology

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus

Microbial Biotechnology

The pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the world has caused a large infected population suffering from COVID-19. To curb the spreading of the virus, WHO urgently demanded an extension of screening and testing; thus, a rapid and simple diagnostic method is needed. We applied a reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) to achieve the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in 30 min. We designed four sets of LAMP primers (6 primers in each set), targeting the viral RNA of SARS-CoV-2 in the regions of orf1ab, S gene and N gene. A colorimetric change was used to report the results, which enables the outcome of viral RNA amplification to be read by the naked eye without the need of expensive or dedicated instrument. The sensitivity can be 80 copies of viral RNA per ml in a sample. We validated the RT-LAMP method in a hospital in China, employing 16 clinic samples with 8 positives and 8 negatives. The testing results are consistent with the conventional RT-qPCR. In addition, we also show that one-step process without RNA extraction is feasible to achieve RNA amplification directly from a sample. This rapid, simple and sensitive RT-LAMP method paves a way for a large screening at public domain and hospitals, particularly regional hospitals and medical centres in rural areas.

RT‐LAMP for rapid diagnosis of coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2