Noninvasive Combined Diagnosis and Monitoring of Aspergillus and Pseudomonas Infections: Proof of Concept

In acutely ill patients, particularly in intensive care units or in mixed infections, time to a microbe-specific diagnosis is critical to a successful outcome of therapy. We report the application of evolving technologies involving mass spectrometry to diagnose and monitor a patient’s course. As proof of this concept, we studied five patients and used two rat models of mono-infection and coinfection. We report the noninvasive combined monitoring of Aspergillus fumigatus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. The invasive coinfection was detected by monitoring the fungal triacetylfusarinine C and ferricrocin siderophore levels and the bacterial metabolites pyoverdin E, pyochelin, and 2-heptyl-4-quinolone, studied in the urine, endotracheal aspirate, or breath condensate. The coinfection was monitored by mass spectrometry followed by isotopic data filtering. In the rat infection model, detection indicated 100-fold more siderophores in urine compared to sera, indicating the diagnostic potential of urine sampling. The tools utilized in our studies can now be examined in large clinical series, where we could expect the accuracy and speed of diagnosis to be competitive with conventional methods and provide advantages in unraveling the complexities of mixed infections.

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Comparison of Ambient and Atmospheric Pressure Ion Sources for Cystic Fibrosis Exhaled Breath Condensate Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry Metabolomics

Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry ◽

10.1007/s13361-017-1660-9 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 28 (8) ◽

pp. 1489-1496 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Xiaoling Zang ◽

José J. Pérez ◽

Christina M. Jones ◽

María Eugenia Monge ◽

Nael A. McCarty ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

Cystic Fibrosis ◽

Ion Mobility ◽

Atmospheric Pressure ◽

Exhaled Breath Condensate ◽

Ion Sources ◽

Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry ◽

Exhaled Breath ◽

Breath Condensate

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Paper-in-Facemask Device for Direct Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Human Respiratory Aerosols and Environmental Exposures via Wearable Continuous-Flow Adsorptive Sampling: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Analytical Chemistry ◽

10.1021/acs.analchem.1c03406 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shen-Hui Cai ◽

Dandan Di ◽

Zi-Cheng Yuan ◽

Weini Chen ◽

Bin Hu

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

Continuous Flow ◽

Environmental Exposures ◽

Mass Spectrometry Analysis ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Spectrometry Analysis ◽

Concept Study ◽

Direct Mass Spectrometry

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Biosecurity Dogs Detect Live Insects after Training with Odor-Proxy Training Aids: Scent Extract and Dead Specimens

Chemical Senses ◽

10.1093/chemse/bjaa001 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 45 (3) ◽

pp. 179-186 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ariella Y Moser ◽

Wendy Y Brown ◽

Lewis A Bizo ◽

Nigel R Andrew ◽

Michelle K Taylor

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

Gas Chromatography ◽

Insect Pests ◽

Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Target Species ◽

Broad Application ◽

Training Aids ◽

Volatile Organic ◽

Scent Detection

Abstract Detector dogs could be trained to find invasive insect pests at borders before they establish in new areas. However, without access to the live insects themselves, odor training aids are needed to condition dogs to their scent. This proof-of-concept study assessed 2 potential training aids for insect detection: a scent extract and dead specimens of the target species. Using Musgraveia sulciventris (Hemiptera: Tessaratomidae) as an experimental model, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses were carried out to compare the chemical headspaces that make up the odors of live specimens and these 2 training aids. This was then followed by canine scent-detection testing to investigate biosecurity detector dogs’ (n = 4) responses to training in an ecologically valid context. Both the scent extract and the dead specimens shared the majority of their volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with live insects. Of the dogs trained with scent extract (n = 2), both were able to detect the live insects accurately, and of those trained with dead specimens (n = 2), one detected the live insects accurately. These findings lend support for these training aids as odor-proxies for live insects—particularly scent extract, which is a relatively novel product with the potential for broad application to facilitate and improve insect-detection training.

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Sub-nanoliter metabolomics via mass spectrometry to characterize volume-limited samples

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-020-19444-y ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yafeng Li ◽

Marcos Bouza ◽

Changsheng Wu ◽

Hengyu Guo ◽

Danning Huang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

Stromal Cells ◽

Exhaled Breath Condensate ◽

Sample Volume ◽

Triboelectric Nanogenerator ◽

Exhaled Breath ◽

Nanoelectrospray Ionization ◽

External Stimuli ◽

Breath Condensate

Abstract The human metabolome provides a window into the mechanisms and biomarkers of various diseases. However, because of limited availability, many sample types are still difficult to study by metabolomic analyses. Here, we present a mass spectrometry (MS)-based metabolomics strategy that only consumes sub-nanoliter sample volumes. The approach consists of combining a customized metabolomics workflow with a pulsed MS ion generation method, known as triboelectric nanogenerator inductive nanoelectrospray ionization (TENGi nanoESI) MS. Samples tested with this approach include exhaled breath condensate collected from cystic fibrosis patients as well as in vitro-cultured human mesenchymal stromal cells. Both test samples are only available in minimum amounts. Experiments show that picoliter-volume spray pulses suffice to generate high-quality spectral fingerprints, which increase the information density produced per unit sample volume. This TENGi nanoESI strategy has the potential to fill in the gap in metabolomics where liquid chromatography-MS-based analyses cannot be applied. Our method opens up avenues for future investigations into understanding metabolic changes caused by diseases or external stimuli.

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Differential Diagnosis of Preeclampsia Based on Urine Peptidome Features Revealed by High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Diagnostics ◽

10.3390/diagnostics10121039 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 1039

Author(s):

Alexey S. Kononikhin ◽

Natalia V. Zakharova ◽

Viktoria A. Sergeeva ◽

Maria I. Indeykina ◽

Natalia L. Starodubtseva ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

High Resolution ◽

High Resolution Mass Spectrometry ◽

Gestational Hypertension ◽

Characteristic Curve ◽

First Trimester ◽

Chronic Hypertension ◽

High Resolution Mass ◽

Diagnostic Potential ◽

Resolution Mass

Preeclampsia (PE) is a severe pregnancy complication, which may be considered as a systemic response in the second half of pregnancy to physiological failures in the first trimester, and can lead to very serious consequences for the health of the mother and fetus. Since PE is often associated with proteinuria, urine proteomic assays may represent a powerful tool for timely diagnostics and appropriate management. High resolution mass spectrometry was applied for peptidome analysis of 127 urine samples of pregnant women with various hypertensive complications: normotensive controls (n = 17), chronic hypertension (n = 16), gestational hypertension (n = 15), mild PE (n = 25), severe PE (n = 25), and 29 patients with complicated diagnoses. Analysis revealed 3869 peptides, which mostly belong to 116 groups with overlapping sequences. A panel of 22 marker peptide groups reliably differentiating PE was created by multivariate statistics, and included 15 collagen groups (from COL1A1, COL3A1, COL2A1, COL4A4, COL5A1, and COL8A1), and single loci from alpha-1-antitrypsin, fibrinogen, membrane-associated progesterone receptor component 1, insulin, EMI domain-containing protein 1, lysine-specific demethylase 6B, and alpha-2-HS-glycoprotein each. ROC analysis of the created model resulted in 88% sensitivity, 96.8% specificity, and receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) = 0.947. Obtained results confirm the high diagnostic potential of urinary peptidome profiling for pregnancy hypertensive disorders diagnostics.

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