Santopolo Giulia, Clemente Antonio, González-Freire Marta, Russell Steven M, Vaquer Andreu, Barón Enrique, Aranda María, Socias Antonia, Del Castillo Alberto, Borges Marcio, de la Rica Roberto
Multidisciplinary Sepsis Group, Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands (IdISBa), 07120 Palma, Spain.
University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Chemistry Department, 07122 Palma, Spain.
Sens Actuators B Chem. 2022 Dec 15;373:132638. doi: 10.1016/j.snb.2022.132638. Epub 2022 Sep 15.
Stratifying patients according to disease severity has been a major hurdle during the COVID-19 pandemic. This usually requires evaluating the levels of several biomarkers, which may be cumbersome when rapid decisions are required. In this manuscript we show that a single nanoparticle aggregation test can be used to distinguish patients that require intensive care from those that have already been discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU). It consists of diluting a platelet-free plasma sample and then adding gold nanoparticles. The nanoparticles aggregate to a larger extent when the samples are obtained from a patient in the ICU. This changes the color of the colloidal suspension, which can be evaluated by measuring the pixel intensity of a photograph. Although the exact factor or combination of factors behind the different aggregation behavior is unknown, control experiments demonstrate that the presence of proteins in the samples is crucial for the test to work. Principal component analysis demonstrates that the test result is highly correlated to biomarkers of prognosis and inflammation that are commonly used to evaluate the severity of COVID-19 patients. The results shown here pave the way to develop nanoparticle aggregation assays that classify COVID-19 patients according to disease severity, which could be useful to de-escalate care safely and make a better use of hospital resources.
在新冠疫情期间，根据疾病严重程度对患者进行分层一直是一个主要障碍。这通常需要评估多种生物标志物的水平，而在需要快速做出决策时，这可能会很麻烦。在本论文中，我们表明，一种单一的纳米颗粒聚集试验可用于区分需要重症监护的患者和已经从重症监护病房（ICU）出院的患者。该试验包括稀释无血小板血浆样本，然后添加金纳米颗粒。当从ICU患者获取样本时，纳米颗粒的聚集程度更大。这会改变胶体悬浮液的颜色，可通过测量照片的像素强度来评估。尽管不同聚集行为背后的确切因素或因素组合尚不清楚，但对照实验表明，样本中蛋白质的存在对该试验的有效性至关重要。主成分分析表明，试验结果与常用于评估新冠患者严重程度的预后和炎症生物标志物高度相关。此处所示结果为开发根据疾病严重程度对新冠患者进行分类的纳米颗粒聚集测定法铺平了道路，这可能有助于安全地降低护理级别并更好地利用医院资源。
