{"doi":"10.1093/cid/ciaa1706","title":"Antigen-Based Testing but Not Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Correlates With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Viral Culture","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Individuals can test positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by molecular assays following the resolution of their clinical disease. Recent studies indicate that SARS-CoV-2 antigen-based tests are likely to be positive early in the disease course, when there is an increased likelihood of high levels of infectious virus. METHODS: Upper respiratory specimens from 251 participants with coronavirus disease 2019 symptoms (≤7 days from symptom onset) were prospectively collected and tested with a lateral flow antigen test and a real-time polymerase chain reaction (rt-PCR) assay for detection of SARS-CoV-2. Specimens from a subset of the study specimens were utilized to determine the presence of infectious virus in the VeroE6TMPRSS2 cell culture model. RESULTS: The antigen test demonstrated a higher positive predictive value (90%) than rt-PCR (70%) when compared to culture-positive results. The positive percentage agreement for detection of infectious virus for the antigen test was similar to rt-PCR when compared to culture results. CONCLUSIONS: The correlation between SARS-CoV-2 antigen and SARS-CoV-2 culture positivity represents a significant advancement in determining the risk for potential transmissibility beyond that which can be achieved by detection of SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA. SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing can facilitate low-cost, scalable, and rapid time-to-result, while providing good risk determination of those who are likely harboring infectious virus, compared to rt-PCR.","journal":"Clinical Infectious Diseases","year":2021,"id":145880,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":294,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9645,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":619910,"name":"Valentin Parvu","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":487706,"name":"Maggie Li","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":619911,"name":"Jeffrey C Andrews","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":237961,"name":"Yukari C. Manabe","orcid":"0000-0001-8619-5598","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":619912,"name":"Salma Kodsi","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":619913,"name":"Devin S. Gary","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":619914,"name":"Celine Roger-Dalbert","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":619915,"name":"Jeffry M. Leitch","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":619916,"name":"Charles K. Cooper","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227501,"name":"Andrew Pekosz","orcid":"0000-0003-3248-1761","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":39,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:42:12.871665Z","pmid":"33479756","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}