Compiled from the GenBank database, the 41,047 probes in this panel will allow researchers to separate COVID-19 symptoms from those of other respiratory illnesses, both influenza- and non-influenza-related. The Twist Respiratory Panel enables enrichment of these viral sequences for high-resolution NGS. This leads to high-sensitivity detection of as little as 100 copies of viral material with more than 5000x enrichment even from challenging samples, and coverage of > 99.9% of the genome at 1X or greater post-enrichment.

Each Twist Synthetic Viral Control was spiked into 50 ng of human carrier RNA at 1,000,000 copies prior to cDNA synthesis. For each standard, we show percent of on-target viral reads, fold enrichment above input, median coverage across the genome, the percent of bases with at least 30x coverage, and the template length. Viral genomes are ordered by template length (smallest to longest) among all genome segments. In most cases, we found that over 70 percent of reads came from viral genomes in these libraries, representing at least a 2500-fold enrichment over the spiked-in content.

A comparison of the percent on-target viral reads captured using the Twist Synthetic Viral Controls at different viral titers, using a multiplex and single-plex hybridization reaction. The first graph shows comparisons using a multiplex and single-plex hybridization reaction using 1,000,000 copies per library, while the second graph shows a similar comparison using 100, 10,000, and 1,000,000 copies per library. Each viral control was captured using the Twist Standard Target Enrichment workflow and the Twist Respiratory Virus Research Panel. This data demonstrates that 8-plex capture gives comparable efficient enrichment as a single plex capture when using the Twist Respiratory Virus Research Panel.