The Twist Respiratory Panel is a powerful tool designed for the detection of common human respiratory pathogens through a single test. It comprises 41,047 probes compiled from the GenBank database, allowing researchers to distinguish COVID-19 symptoms from those of other respiratory illnesses, whether influenza- or non-influenza-related. This panel facilitates high-resolution Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) by enriching viral sequences, enabling the high-sensitivity detection of viral material, even in challenging samples, with more than 5000x enrichment. Post-enrichment, it achieves coverage of over 99.9% of the genome at 1X or greater.

The panel demonstrates its effectiveness in detecting viral standards from different viral families. Synthetic Viral Controls, when spiked into human carrier RNA, show significant enrichment, with over 70% of reads coming from viral genomes, representing at least a 2500-fold enrichment over the spiked-in content.

Furthermore, the Twist Respiratory Panel supports multiplexing for higher throughput and lower cost. Comparisons using multiplex and single-plex hybridization reactions at different viral titers show that 8-plex capture provides comparable efficient enrichment as a single-plex capture. This is demonstrated using the Twist Synthetic Viral Controls and the Twist Respiratory Virus Research Panel, showcasing the versatility and cost-effectiveness of multiplexing in this respiratory virus detection system.