An In Silico Analysis of PCR-Based Monkeypox Virus Detection Assays: A Case Study for Ongoing Clinical Surveillance

Bibliographic Details
Title: An In Silico Analysis of PCR-Based Monkeypox Virus Detection Assays: A Case Study for Ongoing Clinical Surveillance
Authors: Kuncheng Song, Hayden N. Brochu, Qimin Zhang, Jonathan D. Williams, Lakshmanan K. Iyer
Source: Viruses, Vol 15, Iss 12, p 2327 (2023)
Publisher Information: MDPI AG, 2023.
Publication Year: 2023
Collection: LCC:Microbiology
Subject Terms: monkeypox virus, monkeypox, poxvirus, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, in silico analysis, Microbiology, QR1-502
More Details: The 2022 global Mpox outbreak swiftly introduced unforeseen diversity in the monkeypox virus (MPXV) population, resulting in numerous Clade IIb sublineages. This propagation of new MPXV mutations warrants the thorough re-investigation of previously recommended or validated primers designed to target MPXV genomes. In this study, we explored 18 PCR primer sets and examined their binding specificity against 5210 MPXV genomes, representing all the established MPXV lineages. Our results indicated that only five primer sets resulted in almost all perfect matches against the targeted MPXV lineages, and the remaining primer sets all contained 1–2 mismatches against almost all the MPXV lineages. We further investigated the mismatched primer-genome pairs and discovered that some of the primers overlapped with poorly sequenced and assembled regions of the MPXV genomes, which are consistent across multiple lineages. However, we identified 173 99% genome-wide conserved regions across all 5210 MPXV genomes, representing 30 lineages/clades with at least 80% lineage-specific consensus for future primer development and primer binding evaluation. This exercise is crucial to ensure that the current detection schemes are robust and serve as a framework for primer evaluation in clinical testing development for other infectious diseases.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1999-4915
Relation: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/12/2327; https://doaj.org/toc/1999-4915
DOI: 10.3390/v15122327
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/5d63cab16c87444d9be57737aefac52a
Accession Number: edsdoj.5d63cab16c87444d9be57737aefac52a
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:19994915
DOI:10.3390/v15122327
Published in:Viruses
Language:English