The S Gene Primer Design for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Virus

Abstract

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the testing instrument for detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus is barely available. However, due to the swift actions of the bioinformaticians and biomedical scientist, RT-PCR is becoming the gold standard for detecting the existence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the human samples. S gene of the virus, as the one that expressed the Spike protein, is responsible for the viral attachment to the ACE2 receptor and penetrating the cell. One of the targets of the RT-PCR protocol is the S gene, and PCR primers are developed accordingly to cater that needs. In our contribution, the in-silico method to design PCR primer for S gene will be described. Involved parameters such as %GC, hairpin, dimers, Tm, and others will be narrated. In this end, it is expected that this contribution could provide insight on how to develop PCR primers with bioinformatics tools.