Performance of SARS-CoV-2 Antigen-Detecting Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Omicron and Other Variants of Concern

Dàlia Raïch-Regué; Jordana Muñoz-Basagoiti; Daniel Perez-Zsolt; Marc Noguera-Julian; Edwards Pradenas; Eva Riveira-Muñoz; Neus Giménez; Assumpta Carabaza; Francesc Giménez; Verónica Saludes; Elisa Martró; Neus Robert; Ignacio Blanco; Roger Paredes; Lidia Ruiz; Ester Ballana; Bonaventura Clotet; Julià Blanco; Nuria Izquierdo-Useros

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.810576

Performance of SARS-CoV-2 Antigen-Detecting Rapid Diagnostic Tests for Omicron and Other Variants of Concern

Front Microbiol. 2022 May 10:13:810576. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.810576. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Dàlia Raïch-Regué¹, Jordana Muñoz-Basagoiti¹, Daniel Perez-Zsolt¹, Marc Noguera-Julian^{1

2

3}, Edwards Pradenas¹, Eva Riveira-Muñoz¹, Neus Giménez⁴, Assumpta Carabaza⁴, Francesc Giménez⁴, Verónica Saludes^{5

6}, Elisa Martró^{5

6}, Neus Robert⁷, Ignacio Blanco⁵, Roger Paredes^{1

3}, Lidia Ruiz¹, Ester Ballana¹, Bonaventura Clotet^{1

2

3}, Julià Blanco^{1

2

3}, Nuria Izquierdo-Useros^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.
² AIDS and Infectious Deseases Department, University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC), Vic, Spain.
³ Infectious Disease Networking Biomedical Research Center, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Infecciosas (CIBERINFEC), Carlos III Health Institute, Madrid, Spain.
⁴ Nesapor Europa, Premià de Dalt, Spain.
⁵ Laboratori Clínic Metropolitana Nord, Department of Microbiology, Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital and Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.
⁶ Epidemiology and Public Health Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
⁷ Department of Emergency, Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital and Research Institute (IGTP), Badalona, Spain.

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic test (Ag-RDTs) is an easy-to-use diagnostic tool to identify the contagious individuals and reduce the new infections. However, to be effective, Ag-RDTs require the detection of distinct variants of concern (VOC) with high analytical sensitivity. Here, we found that the VOC diverge at the nucleocapsid protein used by four commercial Ag-RDTs for the viral detection. Relative to the original D614G variant, there was a 10-fold loss of detection for the Delta and Alpha variants in certain Ag-RDTs, a reduction above the threshold required to isolate the viable virus. However, Beta and Omicron variants did not lose the detection capacity. As the new VOC arise, successful contact tracing requires continuous monitoring of Ag-RDTs performance.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests; diagnosis; nucleocapsid (N); variants of concern.

Copyright © 2022 Raïch-Regué, Muñoz-Basagoiti, Perez-Zsolt, Noguera-Julian, Pradenas, Riveira-Muñoz, Giménez, Carabaza, Giménez, Saludes, Martró, Robert, Blanco, Paredes, Ruiz, Ballana, Clotet, Blanco and Izquierdo-Useros.