Continuous false positive results by SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen testing: a case report.

Efficient and rapid identification of active SARS-CoV-2 infections has been key to monitoring and mitigating the spread of the virus. The implementation of nucleic acid testing (e.g., RT-PCR) was broadly adopted by most public health organizations at the national and community levels across the globe, which was followed by more accessible means of home testing including lateral flow immunochromatographic assay (LFA), also known as a rapid antigen test. Here we report the case of an adult female who repeatedly and consecutively tested positive by RAT (BTNX inc). This sustained false positive was not linked with an active SARS-CoV-2 infection, which was ruled out by RT-PCR and serological analyses. SARS-CoV-2 serology revealed no detectable levels of antibodies against the nucleocapsid suggesting no recent prior infection by SARS-CoV-2. This continuous false positive was limited to BTNX testing devices. This case report aims to describe that such continuous false positives can occur and describes alternative testing approaches that can be performed to confirm RAT results. In addition, broader awareness of such occurrences is warranted in the healthcare and public health community to avoid unnecessary negative impacts on individual's day to day life.

Genome-wide transcriptome and physiological analyses provide new insights into peanut drought response mechanisms.

Drought is one of the main constraints in peanut production in West Texas and eastern New Mexico regions due to the depletion of groundwater. A multi-seasonal phenotypic analysis of 10 peanut genotypes revealed C76-16 (C-76) and Valencia-C (Val-C) as the best and poor performers under deficit irrigation (DI) in West Texas, respectively. In order to decipher transcriptome changes under DI, RNA-seq was performed in C-76 and Val-C. Approximately 369 million raw reads were generated from 12 different libraries of two genotypes subjected to fully irrigated (FI) and DI conditions, of which ~329 million (90.2%) filtered reads were mapped to the diploid ancestors of peanut. The transcriptome analysis detected 4,508 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 1554 genes encoding transcription factors (TFs) and a total of 514 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among the identified DEGs. The comparative analysis between the two genotypes revealed higher and integral tolerance in C-76 through activation of key genes involved in ABA and sucrose metabolic pathways. Interestingly, one SNP from the gene coding F-box protein (Araip.3WN1Q) and another SNP from gene coding for the lipid transfer protein (Aradu.03ENG) showed polymorphism in selected contrasting genotypes. These SNPs after further validation may be useful for performing early generation selection for selecting drought-responsive genotypes.