The project required an RNA purification kit that had superior inhibitor removal and allowed small elution volumes. The Quick-RNA Fecal/Soil Microbe Microprep Kit met all the requirements and was selected for the project.
“The ability to elute in a smaller volume allows us to concentrate the RNA from the wastewater without having to concentrate the wastewater itself which would lead to higher variability and loss of viral RNA,” says Reinke. “Our experience with the kit is it produces very consistent and reproducible data while obtaining very high levels of RNA recovery.”
LACSD’s innovative protocol made use of the Quick-RNA Fecal/Soil Microbe Microprep Kit which is able to purify total RNA including small RNAs (>17 nt) from various soil, sludge, sediment and/or fecal samples in a simple, reliable, and rapid manner.
In these challenging times where scaling up COVID-19 testing is necessary, wastewater monitoring serves as the ideal method for researchers to get a better scope of the number of infected individuals in a region.