AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Detecting Respiratory Infection by 3D Microbial Fingerprints from Exhaled Breath
Fangxia Shen, Xiaoguang Li, Zhuanglei Zou, Jie Xu, Chang-Yu Wu, MAOSHENG YAO, Peking University
Abstract Number: 537 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Every year, respiratory tract infection costs a tremendous human toll worldwide. However, available methods fall short or are cost-prohibitive of providing quick and accurate bedside diagnosis of flu. This study investigated flu microbiota and fluorescent particle size, concentration and fluorescence strength-“3D microbial fingerprints” from exhaled breath for rapid and accurate diagnosis of clinical respiratory infections. Fifty-five patients with respiratory infections and 11 healthy subjects were recruited, and throat swab specimens from a subset were also taken. Bacterial species profiles for these samples were further obtained using 454 GS-FLX pyrosequencing. In addition, the recruited were advised to exhale toward a biological aerosol detector, and 3D microbial fingerprints from exhaled breath were produced instantly. Sequence data revealed a high abundance and diversity of bacteria (more than 400 unique bacterial species including many human pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumoniae) in the specimens, and significant microbial distribution shifts were observed compared to the control. The hemoglobin (HGB) levels for those confirmed with bacterial infections were shown significantly lower than those suspected with viral infections (p-value= .043). A pronounced contrast was observed between the 3D microbial fingerprints that were collected from the same patients when they were ill and healed later. For some cases, fluorescent peaks were observed in much larger particle size ranges (>5 µm), implying a possible fungal infection. Our data suggest that use of the 3D microbial fingerprints from exhaled breath can revolutionize the diagnosis of respiratory infection at virtually no cost in a clinical setting.