Description
Sensitive Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Viral RNA in Wastewater
Detect SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in preprocessed wastewater with high efficiency and sensitivity using the SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR Kit for Wastewater.
The kit contains a combination of primer/probe sets and controls recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This includes primer/probe sets targeting the N1 or N2 regions of the nucleocapsid gene, or the envelope (E) gene; primers detecting Pepper Mild Mottle Virus (PMMoV) as an internal process control; and an internal amplification control.
The RT-qPCR master mix allows sensitive detection and quantification even in the presence of reverse transcriptase inhibitors or PCR inhibitors common to wastewater samples, such as humic acids.
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How Wastewater Testing Can Help Campuses Reopen
Robert Brooks is the Technical Director and Operations Manager at Microbac Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Since the start of the pandemic, his lab has begun developing methods for environmental testing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus using PCR analysis. They based their PCR tests on primer sets used for clinical testing recommended by the CDC, but they had to add other components. “You can’t just take a clinical test and start running environmental samples. It doesn’t quite work like that,” says Robert. The internal controls in clinical testing kits were meant for human samples, not wastewater. To ensure accurate results, they needed a kit specifically designed for wastewater.
Learn more about how Microbac Laboratories is using the SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR Kit for Wastewater to develop low-cost SARS-CoV-2 surveillance testing for university campuses in this blog.
“The Promega kits include internal controls for all the different parameters that need to be measured. The separate targets give us a lot of flexibility, which is what we need.”
