Evaluation of the COVID-19 VoC HRM assay. COVID-19 VoC HRM

In this report, we describe the design and evaluation of three separate multiplex HRM assays, to enable the identification of Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omicron VOCs by detection of the lineage defining mutations, of which E484K (2, 17, 18) and 242-244 deletion (19), have phenotypic implications. We also demonstrate the rapid design of primer sets for Omicron detection. The collection of primer sets presented and the validated assays, whilst not a replacement for NGS, are intended for use as a molecular surveillance toolkit and offer an alternative method to enable efficient and cost-effective detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants and mutations.