December 2023 Update: BioGX in silico analysis of SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest and emerging variants

BioGX continuously monitors the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants to ensure our market leading SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests will continue to detect emerging variants.

BioGX has completed in silico analysis of over 290,000 complete high coverage Omicron genomes of sublineages belonging to the JN.1, EG.5, BA.2.86, XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, HV.1, HK.3, JD.1.1, and JG.3 clades present in the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) EpiCoV™ database as of 31 December, 2023 (Table 1). Sequence analysis of the variant genomes was compared against the SARS-CoV-2 reference genome to identify any mutations within the regions of the nucleocapsid (N-gene), membrane (M-gene), and the coding region of the ORF1a gene (RdRp) targeted by BioGX products.

Based on in silico analysis and empirical testing, the nucleotide mutations present in the JN.1, EG.5, BA.2.86, XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, HV.1, HK.3, JD.1.1, and JG.3 clades at the time of this analysis will not affect the detection capability of the BioGX portfolio of SARS-CoV-2 products and all variants analyzed will be detected.

BioGX continues to monitor emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineage variants and any mutations with the potential to impact performance.

Table 1. Number of sequences analyzed for each Omicron sublineage available from GISAID as of 31 December 2023.