Title Information
Title
Developing a Predictive Diagnostic for COVID-19
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations
Name: Personal
Name Part
Lu, Christine
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Name: Personal
Name Part
Nau, Gerard
Role
Role Term: Text
Advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Monaghan, Sean
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Fredericks, Alger
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Biology and Medicine: Biotechnology
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2023
Physical Description
Extent
5, 30 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note: thesis
Thesis (Sc. M.)--Brown University, 2023
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
Objective: SARS-CoV-2 is an ongoing threat to human health. A predictive diagnostic would be helpful for providing information regarding the future progression of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients, however, none have been deployed. There are polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers based on the sequences used by the CDC (CDC-N1) for diagnostics from nasopharyngeal swabs, but these primers are not effective for measuring RNAemia in all hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The objective of this project was to use deep RNA sequencing to develop a test with greater sensitivity than that of current diagnostics and provide a lead for developing a predictive diagnostic. Methods: Primers targeting the ORF1ab and N genes were designed and validated through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The performance of our primers was compared to that of the CDC-N1. RNA was extracted from whole blood of COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU. Primer designs were evaluated by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Results: An optimized RT-qPCR protocol was developed that minimizes background signal and detects SARS-CoV-2 sequences in whole blood. Higher levels of SARS-CoV-2 RNA were found in COVID-19 patients using our primers than with the CDC-N1 primers. Conclusions: We found that our primers are consistently more sensitive than the CDC-N1 primers for the samples tested. Therefore, further studies of our primers should be conducted to elucidate their potential as a predictive diagnostic.
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01984643")
Topic
COVID-19 (Disease)
Subject
Topic
RT-qPCR
Language
Language Term (ISO639-2B)
English
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20230602