AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
Detecting Breath-borne Pathogens Using a New Device Together with LAMP
YUNHAO ZHENG, Haoxuan Chen, Maosheng Yao, Li Xiaoguang, Xu Jie, Peking University
Abstract Number: 693 Working Group: Bioaerosols
Abstract Respiratory infection causes a tremendous toll on humans worldwide every year. It is very important for patients to be diagnosed accurately and rapidly as they need effective and appropriate medications. However, point-of-care diagnostic methods are significantly lacking at the bedside. Here, we investigated a rapid and non-invasive pathogen diagnosis method using Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) to multiplexing detection of common respiratory pathogens from human exhaled breath samples and also throat swabs. And the collected samples were subjected to LAMP analysis for potential human pathogens. Exhaled breath condensates were collected using a commercialized exhaled breath collection device (eBioCollect) from human subjects with respiratory infection symptoms at Peking University 3rd Hospital. The pathogens included Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Methicillin-resistant Stphylococcus aureus, E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Haemophilus influenzae, Legionella pneumophila, M. Pneumonia, Chlamydia pneumonia, and M. tuberculosis.
Results showed that LAMP can be used together with the eBioCollect for detecting breath-borne pathogens. For four out of fifteen patients, E. coli and P. aeruginosa were detected, while for one subject both MRSA and E. coli were detected from the exhaled breath samples. For throat swabs samples, we have detected pathogens from 25 out of total 69 samples, and the dominant pathogen was H. influenzae, which accounted for about 50% of the infections. Here, depending on the initial pathogen load in the sample, the entire procedure only takes 20-60 min to complete for a respiratory infection diagnosis for both type of samples. The eBioColect device for exhaled breath samples was shown to be able to collect 30 uL exhaled breath condensate samples within 3 mins. This work provides evidence that human bacterial pathogens can be exhaled out into the air while developing a rapid and non-invasive respiratory infection diagnosis protocol for the clinical settings.