Use of compressed sensing to expedite high-throughput diagnostic testing for COVID-19 and beyond
Fig 3
Modified pooling protocol eliminates dilution effect of group testing.
(A) RNA extraction and qRT-PCR workflow in individual testing, traditional pooling (group testing), and the modified pooling protocol. Numerical examples are theoretical to display dilution effect and can be scaled to individual diagnostic testing facility protocols. (B) MHV-1 was used to generate individual samples of various viral loads (1x109-1x102 copy number/qRT-PCR reaction). qRT-PCR was performed on each sample to develop ground truth Ct values. Samples were then used in various pool sizes in traditional pooling and in the modified pooling protocol. Increases in sample Ct values from the ground truth values were calculated and plotted as ΔCt Value. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM from two combined independent experiments (n = 16). For statistical analysis a one-way ANOVA with a Tukey’s post hoc test was performed. ***p<0.001, ns = not significant. Created with BioRender.com.