The NucliSens easyMAG and BioRot 9604 automated nucleic acid extraction systems were evaluated and compared with the manual QIAamp (Qiagen) extraction method for their abilities to extract nucleic acid from nasopharyngeal aspirate samples for the detection of RNA and DNA respiratory viruses. The nucleic acids recovered by all three methods gave comparable sensitivities in PCR tests, and the three methods gave comparable viral loads. There was no evidence of residual PCR inhibitors and no evidence of PCR cross-contamination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA newly developed severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was further validated to confirm cutoff values and evaluate its diagnostic performance with clinical samples. In parallel, an immunochromatographic test was also evaluated. A total of 227 clinical serum specimens collected from SARS patients were used in the study, together with 385 samples from healthy donors.
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