Reliability of Spike Gene Target Failure for ascertaining SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 prevalence in a hospital setting
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Abstract
The appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 in the UK in late 2020, associated with faster transmission, sparked the need to find effective ways to monitor its spread. The set of mutations that characterise this lineage include a deletion in position 69 and 70 of the spike protein, which is known to be associated with Spike Gene Target Failure (SGTF) in a commonly used three gene diagnostic qPCR assay. The lower cost and faster turnaround times compared to whole genome sequencing make the use of qPCR for monitoring of the variant spread an attractive proposition. However, there are several potential issues with this approach. Here we use 826 SARS-CoV-2 samples collected in a hospital setting as part of the Hospital Onset COVID Infection (HOCI) study where qPCR was used for viral detection, followed by whole genome sequencing (WGS), to identify the factors to consider when using SGTF to infer lineage B.1.1.7 prevalence in a hospital setting, with potential implications for locations where this variant has recently been introduced.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.12.21255084: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.12.21255084: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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