Fig. 1.

The HexaPrime assay. Briefly, reverse transcription (RT) and second-strand (SS) synthesis reactions were conducted on total RNA (black) in the presence of primers comprising short (6–8 nt) elements that recognize conserved regions of viral nucleic acids (dark green and dark blue for RT and SS primers, respectively) and longer (16–18 nt) anchors that serve as a template for subsequent PCR amplification (light green and light blue for RT and SS primers, respectively). Products of the PCR amplification of coronaviral RNA may be analyzed further by gel electrophoresis and sequencing.