MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry of saliva samples as a prognostic tool for COVID-19

Abstract

Background The SARS-CoV-2 infections are still imposing a great public health challenge despite the recent developments in vaccines and therapy. Searching for diagnostic and prognostic methods that are fast, low-cost and accurate are essential for disease control and patient recovery. The MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry technique is rapid, low cost and accurate when compared to other MS methods, thus its use is already reported in the literature for various applications, including microorganism identification, diagnosis and prognosis of diseases. Methods Here we developed a prognostic method for COVID-19 using the proteomic profile of saliva samples submitted to MALDI-TOF and machine learning algorithms to train models for COVID-19 severity assessment. Results We achieved an accuracy of 88.5%, specificity of 85% and sensitivity of 91.5% for classification between mild/moderate and severe conditions. When we tested the model performance in an independent dataset, we achieved an accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 67.18, 52.17 and 75.60% respectively. Conclusion Saliva is already reported to have high inter-sample variation; however, our results demonstrates that this approach has the potential to be a prognostic method for COVID-19. Additionally, the technology used is already available in several clinics, facilitating the implementation of the method. Further investigation using a larger dataset is necessary to consolidate the technique.

Investigation of Oral Shedding of Torquetenovirus (TTV) in Moderate-to-Severe COVID-19 Hospitalised Patients

“…All the patients included in our study had a diagnosis of COVID-19 performed by means of molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal swab samples, whereas the salivary presence of the virus was detected in 64.8% of subjects, showing the persistence of the virus in this fluid. This confirms the relevance of saliva sampling as a fluid with diagnostic and prognostic potential to allow for the follow-up of patients hospitalised due to COVID-19 complications, not only by detecting the virus, but also as other a biomarker of infection [ 20 , 21 , 24 , 25 ]. Among all patients examined in this present study, the majority of moderate or severe cases of COVID-19 involved male patients ( p = 0.014).…”

MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometric Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Using Cellulose Sulfate Ester Enrichment and Hot Acid Treatment

“…Approaches using MALDI-TOF MS as a diagnostic tool for COVID-19 have been demonstrated. − On the basis of the current reports, the detection strategy mainly relies on applying machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms (AI/ML) to mass peaks (features) extracted from MALDI-TOF MS of either blood, saliva, or nasal swab specimens. − Since the mass peaks acquired by MALDI-TOF MS are generated from human specimens, the features that drive the separation between SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative subjects are drawn from both host-response markers and pathogen signatures. As a result, researchers only report masses in MALDI-TOF MS.…”