Assessment of potential SARS-CoV-2 virus integration into human genome reveals no significant impact on RT-qPCR COVID-19 testing.

Severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic presents new scientific and scale-up challenges for diagnostic capabilities worldwide. The gold standard diagnostic for SARS-CoV-2 infection is an RT-qPCR which targets the SARS-CoV-2 genome, an assay that has now been performed on millions of patient specimens worldwide regardless of symptomatic status. Zhang et al. (1) suggest the possibility that the SARS-CoV-2 N gene could integrate into host cell DNA through the action of the LINE1 retrotransposon, a mobile element potentially active in human somatic cells, thereby calling into question the veracity of N gene−based RT-qPCR for detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Multiple studies and a peer-reviewed work (2) have challenged Zhang et al.’s conclusions, attributing the observed viral/human chimeric sequencing reads to artifactual processes happening during library preparation. Moreover, many are the caveats of Zhang et al.’s hypothesis of SARS-COV-2 … [↵][1] 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: paolo.mita{at}reopenlabs.com. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1