Michel Moïse, Malergue Fabrice, Ait Belkacem Inès, Bourgoin Pénélope, Morange Pierre-Emmanuel, Arnoux Isabelle, Miloud Tewfik, Million Matthieu, Tissot-Dupont Hervé, Mege Jean-Louis, Vitte Joana, Busnel Jean-Marc
Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France.
APHM Hôpitaux Universitaires de Marseille, Hôpital Timone, Marseille, France.
SAGE Open Med. 2022 Aug 3;10:20503121221115483. doi: 10.1177/20503121221115483. eCollection 2022.
The COVID-19 corona virus disease outbreak is globally challenging health systems and societies. Its diagnosis relies on molecular methods, with drawbacks revealed by mass screening. Upregulation of neutrophil CD64 or monocyte CD169 has been abundantly reported as markers of bacterial or acute viral infection, respectively. We evaluated the sensitivity of an easy, one-step whole blood flow cytometry assay to measure these markers within 10 min, as a potential screening test for COVID-19 patients.
Patients ( = 177) with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection were tested on 10 µL blood and results were compared with reverse transcriptase-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR).
We observed 98% and 100% sensitivity in early-stage ( = 52) and asymptomatic patients ( = 9), respectively. Late-stage patients, who presented for a second control RT-qPCR, were negative for both assays in most cases. Conversely, neutrophil CD64 expression was unchanged in 75% of cases, without significant differences between groups.
Monocyte CD169 evaluation was highly sensitive for detecting SARS-CoV-2 infection in first-presentation patients; and it returns to basal level upon infection clearance. The potential ease of fingerprick collection, minimal time-to-result, and low cost rank this biomarker measurement as a potential viral disease screening tool, including COVID-19. When the virus prevalence in the tested population is usually low (1%-10%), such an approach could increase the testing capacity 10 to 100-fold, with the same limited molecular testing resources, which could focus on confirmation purposes only.
新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情正在全球范围内给卫生系统和社会带来挑战。其诊断依赖分子方法，但大规模筛查暴露出了这些方法的缺陷。大量报道称，中性粒细胞CD64上调或单核细胞CD169上调分别是细菌感染或急性病毒感染的标志物。我们评估了一种简便的一步式全血流式细胞术检测方法在10分钟内检测这些标志物的敏感性，作为COVID-19患者的一种潜在筛查检测方法。
对177例确诊感染严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）的患者采集10µL血液进行检测，并将结果与逆转录定量聚合酶链反应（RT-qPCR）结果进行比较。
我们分别在早期患者（n = 52）和无症状患者（n = 9）中观察到了98%和100%的敏感性。进行第二次对照RT-qPCR的晚期患者在大多数情况下两种检测均为阴性。相反，75%的病例中中性粒细胞CD64表达未发生变化，各组之间无显著差异。
单核细胞CD169评估对于首次就诊患者中检测SARS-CoV-2感染具有高度敏感性；感染清除后其恢复至基础水平。这种生物标志物检测方法具有潜在的易于手指采血、出结果时间短和成本低等优势，可作为包括COVID-19在内的潜在病毒性疾病筛查工具。当被检测人群中的病毒流行率通常较低（1%-10%）时，在分子检测资源有限的情况下，这种方法可将检测能力提高10至100倍，而有限的分子检测资源可仅用于确认目的。
