RT-PCR using glycoprotein target is more sensitive for the detection of Ebola virus in clinical samples

The recent largest ever Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa has been of worldwide concern, causing huge economic losses and constituting serious threat to the local residents and health care workers. Rapid detection of Ebola virus (EBOV) using RT-PCR has been suggested to be of great value in stopping the outbreak, because it is highly sensitive and specific and can return results within hours. In this study, 210 clinical samples, including 109 blood and 101 nasopharyngeal swab samples were used to compare the performance of glycoprotein (GP) and nucleoprotein (NP) gene targets for the detection of EBOV. The analytical sensitivity of both assays were 10 molecules/μL. For clinical samples, the sensitivity of the assay targeting GP gene is higher than that of NP gene (respectively 98% and 94%) and the specificities for both targets were 100%. In addition, the positive samples in the RT-PCR assay targeting GP showed lower cycle threshold values and higher virus loads than NP gene.