June 4, 2021

A Comparison of Four Commercially Available RNA Extraction Kits for Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in a College Population

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

Keywords (Tags): testing, wastewater

• [Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A comparison of four commercially available RNA extraction kits found that the Zymo Quick-RNA Viral kit yielded the most consistent, timely, and accurate results for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater from a college campus. Although wastewater-based surveillance has been performed as an early detection system for enteric viruses, most of these viruses are non-enveloped, whereas SARS-CoV-2 is enveloped, which makes detection of viral RNA challenging. The authors note that the Zymo kit may be best suited for smaller population densities. 

O’Brian et al. (June 3, 2021). A Comparison of Four Commercially Available RNA Extraction Kits for Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in a College Population. Pre-print downloaded Jun 4 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.01.21257858