Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Ulm University, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany.
Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, Ulm University, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany; Hahn-Schickard Institute for Microanalysis Systems, Sedanstrasse 14, 89077 Ulm, Germany.
Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2023 Dec 5;302:123066. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2023.123066. Epub 2023 Jun 22.
The COVID-19 pandemic remains a global challenge now with the long-COVID arising. Mitigation measures focused on case counting, assessment and determination of variants and their likely targets of infection and transmission, the pursuit of drug treatments, use and enhancement of masks, social distancing, vaccination, post-infection rehabilitation, and mass screening. The latter is of utmost importance given the current scenario of infections, reinfections, and long-term health effects. Research on screening platforms has been developed to provide more sensitive, specific, and reliable tests that are accessible to the entire population and can be used to assess the prognosis of the disease as well as the subsequent health follow-up of patients with sequelae of COVID-19. Therefore, the aim of the present study was the simulation of exhaled breath of COVID-19 patients by evaluation of three identified COVID-19 indicator breath biomarkers (acetone (ACE), acetaldehyde (ACH) and nitric oxide (NO)) by gas-phase infrared spectroscopy as a proof-of-concept principle for the detection of infected patients' exhaled breath fingerprint and subsequent follow-up. The specific fingerprints of each of the compounds and the overall fingerprint were obtained. The synthetic exhaled breath evaluation concept revealed a linearity of r = 0.99 for all compounds, and LODs of 6.42, 13.81, 9.22 ppm, and LOQs of 42.26, 52.57, 69.23 ppm for NO, ACE, and ACH, respectively. This study proves the fundamental feasibility of gas-phase infrared spectroscopy for fingerprinting lung damage biomarkers in exhaled breath of patients with COVID-19. This analysis would allow faster and cheaper screening and follow-up of infected individuals, which could improve mass screening in POC settings.
目前，随着长新冠的出现，新冠疫情仍然是一个全球性挑战。缓解措施侧重于病例计数、评估和确定变体及其可能的感染和传播目标，追求药物治疗，使用和增强口罩，保持社交距离，接种疫苗，感染后康复，以及大规模筛查。鉴于当前感染、再次感染和长期健康影响的情况，后者至关重要。已经开发了针对筛查平台的研究，以提供更敏感、更特异和更可靠的测试，这些测试可供全民使用，可用于评估疾病的预后以及 COVID-19 后遗症患者的后续健康随访。因此，本研究的目的是通过气相红外光谱评估三种已确定的 COVID-19 指示性呼吸生物标志物（丙酮（ACE）、乙醛（ACH）和一氧化氮（NO））来模拟 COVID-19 患者的呼气，作为检测感染患者呼气指纹的概念验证原理，以及随后的随访。获得了每种化合物和整体指纹的特定指纹。合成呼气评估概念显示所有化合物的 r 值均为 0.99，NO、ACE 和 ACH 的 LOD 分别为 6.42、13.81 和 9.22 ppm，LOQ 分别为 42.26、52.57 和 69.23 ppm。这项研究证明了气相红外光谱在 COVID-19 患者呼气中对肺部损伤生物标志物进行指纹分析的基本可行性。这种分析将允许更快、更便宜地对感染者进行筛查和随访，从而改善在 POCT 设置中的大规模筛查。
