Rapid Classification of COVID-19 Severity by ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy of Plasma Samples

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to ravage the world, with many hospitals overwhelmed by the large number of patients presenting during major outbreaks. A rapid triage for COVID-19 patient requiring hospitalization and intensive care is urgently needed. Age and comorbidities have been associated with a higher risk of severe COVID-19 but are not sufficient to triage patients. Here, we investigated the potential of attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy as a rapid blood test for classification of COVID-19 disease severity using a cohort of 160 COVID-19 patients. A simple plasma processing and ATR-FTIR data acquisition procedure was established using 75% ethanol for viral inactivation. Next, partial least-squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models were developed and tested using data from 130 and 30 patients, respectively. Addition of the ATR-FTIR spectra to the clinical parameters (age, sex, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension) increased the area under the ROC curve (C-statistics) for both the training and test data sets, from 69.3% (95% CI 59.8–78.9%) to 85.7% (78.6–92.8%) and 77.8% (61.3–94.4%) to 85.1% (71.3–98.8%), respectively. The independent test set achieved 69.2% specificity (42.4–87.3%) and 94.1% sensitivity (73.0–99.0%). Diabetes mellitus was the strongest predictor in the model, followed by FTIR regions 1020–1090 and 1588–1592 cm –1 . In summary, this study demonstrates the potential of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy as a rapid, low-cost COVID-19 severity triage tool to facilitate COVID-19 patient management during an outbreak.

Pathophysiological Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection Detected by Infrared Spectroscopy Enables Rapid and Robust Saliva Screening for COVID-19

“…In contrast, saccharide bands were decreased in in vitro and mouse models, with VIP values 1.2-1.43 over the range 1067-1006 cm −1 (Figures 3b,e and S5b). This range of wavenumbers was previously recognized for having significance in predicting severe COVID-19 outcomes when evaluating blood plasma, including an elevated AUC at 1592-1588 cm −1 [12]. Taken together, these results suggest a change in the physiological Figure 4a shows the LogWorth FDR analysis comparing COVID.NEG and COVID.POS FU.POS saliva, which revealed significant differences in all amide bands, including increased absorbance in amide A and B (3500-3300 cm −1 and 3100 cm −1 , respectively), a narrowing of amide I from a major right shift (1710-1650 cm −1 ) and minor left shift (1624-1596 cm −1 ), a pronounced increase and right shift of amide II (1570-1470 cm −1 ), and an increase of amide III (1320 cm −1 ).…”

“…For biosafe ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, we recently reported a decontamination procedure with the addition of 100% ethanol to plasma to obtain 75% final ( v / v ), and used this method in developing ATR-FTIR for predicting COVID-19 severity using plasma samples [ 12 ]. The high ethanol percentage facilitated the rapid evaporation of the treated plasma (1 μL) on the ATR-FTIR target (~30 s), thus enabling very rapid data acquisition [ 12 ]. Here, we applied the ethanol decontamination procedure to experimental infection and participant saliva samples to investigate the pathophysiology underlying FTIR-based saliva screening.…”

MS-based targeted profiling of oxylipins in COVID-19: A new insight into inflammation regulation

“…Several papers have been published in the last year discussing factors related to the severity of COVID-19 and defining risk scores for the prediction of severity and outcome of the disease [ [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] ]. Most of the proposed scores are based on demographic and anamnestic data as well as on clinical parameters easily measured or calculated from a routine blood test, e.g., age, comorbidities, oxygen saturation, lactate dehydrogenase or neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio.…”

ATR-FTIR spectrum analysis of saliva samples from COVID-19 positive patients

“…Furthermore, Lee-Montiel et al, in 2011, evaluated the utility of FTIR spectroscopy for rapid detection of infective virus particles poliovirus in cell cultures 24 , and Santos et al in 2020, reported several spectral features changes for hepatitis infected patients 17 . Additionally, nowadays, Banerjee et al developed a predictive algorithm for COVID-19 disease stratification into severe and non-severe COVID-19 through ATR-FTIR spectra 25 . Therefore, in the search to propose new techniques that allow detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, FTIR spectroscopy has been considered in this research.…”