A Diagnostic Kit is a product containing reagents and other items necessary to conduct a test to detect the presence of or to measure a given biomarker in a given biological sample. The initial step for any diagnosis is nucleic acid extraction ¹. It is the first step of any amplification experiment, no matter what kind of amplification is used to detect a specific pathogen. It is a crucial pre-analytic step in the development and performance of any successful molecular diagnostic method and ensures a reliable result ¹. Nucleic acid includes DNA and RNA, whose extractions are the preliminary step in any disease diagnosis. It is useful for gene expression studies, pathogen detection, identification, and classification. For the current global pandemic, for the detection of infectious diseases such as MERS, SARS CoV-2, Zika, etc. for which immediate diagnosis is a prerequisite, the promising platform is RT-PCR based detection, which involves sequence specific primers whose exponential amplifications result in the qualitative and quantitative detection of pathogenic agents in real time.

Reference

1. Tang YW, Stratton CW. Advanced techniques in diagnostic microbiology. Adv Tech Diagnostic Microbiol. Published online 2014:1-957. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3970-7