Irradiation of UVC LED at 277 nm inactivates coronaviruses by photodegradation of spike protein

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Abstract

To interrupt SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains, Ultraviolet-C (UVC) irradiation has emerged as a potential disinfection tool to aid in blocking the spread of coronaviruses. While conventional 254-nm UVC mercury lamps have been used for disinfection purposes, other UVC wavelengths have emerged as attractive alternatives but a direct comparison of these tools is lacking with the inherent mechanistic properties unclear. Our results using human coronaviruses, hCoV-229E and hCoV-OC43, have indicated that 277-nm UVC LED is most effective in viral inactivation, followed by 222-nm far UVC and 254-nm UVC mercury lamp. While UVC mercury lamp is more effective in degrading viral genomic content compared to 277-nm UVC LED, the latter results in a pronounced photo-degradation of spike proteins which potentially contributed to the higher efficacy of coronavirus inactivation. Hence, inactivation of coronaviruses by 277-nm UVC LED irradiation constitutes a more promising method for disinfection.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.31.446403: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot 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 found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


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