As the development of assays to detect Covid-19 ramps up in anticipation of large-scale patient testing, availability of RNA isolation kits has become a bottleneck with scientists reporting that supplies are frequently not available. Many labs have turned to Twitter to plead with other groups for access to spare kits.
A number of companies produce RNA isolation kits, but the CDC’s instructions for coronavirus testing kits list only Qiagen products under “RNA extraction options," according to Reuters. As such, it is not surprising that Qiagen has provoked the most ire for their inability to ship needed products.
Qiagen
The company recently announced plans to "dramatically ramp up global production capacity of RNA extraction kits that are used as part of workflows around the world to detect nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2." Qiagen also reported that it had historically allocated global production capacity to manufacture RNA nucleic extraction reagents to supply about 1.5 million patient tests on a monthly basis. By the end of April, it plans to ramp up production capacity for these reagents to support a level of more than 6.5 million patient tests a month and exceed over 10 million patient tests a month by the end of June. Among the company’s top priorities is producing the QIAamp and EZ1 sample technologies, which are recommended in the CDC guidelines.
Promega
Promega has seen an approximately fourfold increase in monthly demand for RNA isolation products, according to Heather Tomlinson, Director, Clinical Diagnostics, who added that they are “producing as much of our sample preparation reagents as possible each week, and continuing to ship regularly. These include a broad range of products for viral RNA isolation, from manual up to high-throughput solutions.”
The company’s automated extraction systems, Maxwell 16 RSC and Maxwell 48, process multiple samples in parallel with the Maxwell: Viral TNA Maxwell AS1330 purification kit. Examples of its Manual Extraction solutions include ReliaPrep Blood gDNA Miniprep and ReliaPrep Viral Total Nucleic Acid Miniprep kits. "For high-throughput laboratories, Promega’s Maxwell HT Viral TNA kit has demonstrated performance on common liquid handlers including the KingFisher, the Tecan Freedom EVO 150, the EP motion, the Hamilton Star, and Beckman automation platforms,” Tomlinson added.
MilliporeSigma
MilliporeSigma says there are no supply issues with any of its products related to Covid-19. “We sell RNA extraction kits for research purposes only. We are supporting our customers in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 by providing the raw materials and/or components such as chemicals, enzymes, membranes, immunoassay solutions, and custom antibodies for potential use by customers in the development and use of diagnostic test kits (rapid/standard) and custom oligos for primers/probes, as well as a number of other products to disinfect surfaces in labs and hospitals so that they are virus and bacteria free,” the company explained in a statement.
Agilent
Agilent told us that its Total RNA Isolation Mini Kit is currently available for order. The kit uses a straightforward spin-column method to deliver total RNA for use in gene expression and other downstream analyses. A unique prefiltration column simultaneously clarifies and homogenizes viscous samples, facilitating simultaneous RNA isolation and genomic DNA removal.
New England Biolabs
NEB does not currently supply a kit specifically designed for viral RNA extraction. However, its Monarch Total RNA Miniprep Kit (NEB #T2010S) is optimized for extraction of total RNA from a variety of sample types. “Though we have not validated our kit for viral RNA extraction from nasopharyngeal swabs or aspirates, since its launch, several of our customers have provided feedback that they have successfully extracted viral RNA from other biological samples,” the company explained in a statement.
In addition, NEB has generated a protocol for processing saliva, buccal swabs, and nasopharyngeal samples, which is available on its website. “We currently have kits in stock, and we hope that these can support the scientific community in this time of need.”
For information on NEB Covid-19 solutions, this landing page describes them in more detail.
Zymo Research
We were unable to reach anyone at Zymo but according to numerous Twitter posts they have RNA extraction kits available for researchers working on coronavirus testing.
We are still waiting to hear back from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Roche, Bio-Rad, and a few others. There are many companies with RNA isolation products, and this article will be updated as additional information comes in.