Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin 53792, United States.
Anal Chem. 2023 Jul 11;95(27):10211-10220. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c00462. Epub 2023 Jun 26.
Respiratory infections are common in children, and there is a need for user-friendly collection methods. Here, we performed the first human subjects study using the CandyCollect device, a lollipop-inspired saliva collection device .We showed that the CandyCollect device can be used to collect salivary bacteria from healthy adults using and as proof-of-concept commensal bacteria. We enrolled healthy adults in a nationwide (USA) remote study in which participants were sent study packages containing CandyCollect devices and traditional commercially available oral swabs and spit tubes. Participants sampled themselves at home, completed usability and user preference surveys, and mailed the samples back to our laboratory for analysis by qPCR. Our results showed that for participants in which a given bacterium ( or ) was detected in one or both of the commercially available methods (oral swab and/or spit tubes), CandyCollect devices had a 100% concordance with the positive result ( = 14 participants). Furthermore, the CandyCollect device was ranked the highest preference sampling method among the three sampling methods by 26 participants surveyed (combining survey results across two enrollment groups). We also showed that the CandyCollect device has a shelf life of up to 1 year at room temperature, a storage period that is convenient for clinics or patients to keep the CandyCollect device and use it any time. Taken together, we have demonstrated that the CandyCollect is a user-friendly saliva collection tool that has the potential to be incorporated into diagnostic assays in clinic visits and telemedicine.
呼吸道感染在儿童中很常见，因此需要使用用户友好的采集方法。在这里，我们首次使用 CandyCollect 设备（一种受棒棒糖启发的唾液采集设备）进行了人体研究。我们表明，CandyCollect 设备可用于收集健康成年人的唾液细菌，以 和 作为共生细菌的概念验证。我们在全国范围内（美国）进行了一项远程研究，向参与者发送了包含 CandyCollect 设备和传统市售口腔拭子和唾液管的研究包。参与者在家中自行采样，完成了可用性和用户偏好调查，并将样本邮寄回我们的实验室，通过 qPCR 进行分析。我们的研究结果表明，对于在一种或两种市售方法（口腔拭子和/或唾液管）中检测到给定细菌（或）的参与者，CandyCollect 设备与阳性结果完全一致（= 14 名参与者）。此外，在接受调查的 26 名参与者中，CandyCollect 设备被评为三种采样方法中最受欢迎的采样方法（将两个招募组的调查结果综合起来）。我们还表明，CandyCollect 设备在室温下的保质期长达 1 年，这是诊所或患者方便保存 CandyCollect 设备并随时使用的存储期。总之，我们已经证明 CandyCollect 是一种用户友好的唾液采集工具，有可能被纳入临床就诊和远程医疗中的诊断检测中。
