Detecting SARS-CoV-2 in the Breath of COVID-19 Patients

Frontiers in Medicine

Jing Li¹  He Zhang¹  Wenjun Liu¹  Ke Chen¹  Guoqiang Li²  Jun Lu²  Wei Ding²  Liang Sun²  Ning Shen³  Xiaoning Yuan³  Xiaoguang Li³  Qinggang Ge³  Tong Zhang⁴  Yuguang Du⁵  Zhuo Wang⁵  Chen Zhang⁵  Lei Tan⁶  Runqiang Zhang⁶  Wei Li⁷ 

[1] CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;Commune of Scientific Engineers, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;Department of Infectious Diseases, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China;Department of Infectious Diseases, YouAn Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China;State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering and Innovation Academy for Green Manufacture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China;State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;

关键词: SARS-CoV-2;    COVID-19;    exhaled breath;    swirling aerosol collector;    virus detection;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2021.604392

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In the COVID-19 outbreak year 2020, a consensus was reached on the fact that SARS-CoV-2 spreads through aerosols. However, finding an efficient method to detect viruses in aerosols to monitor the risk of similar infections and enact effective control remains a great challenge. Our study aimed to build a swirling aerosol collection (SAC) device to collect viral particles in exhaled breath and subsequently detect SARS-CoV-2 using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Laboratory tests of the SAC device using aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus indicated that the SAC device can produce a positive result in only 10 s, with a collection distance to the source of 10 cm in a biosafety chamber, when the release rate of the pseudovirus source was 1,000,000 copies/h. Subsequent clinical trials of the device showed three positives and 14 negatives out of 27 patients in agreement with pharyngeal swabs, and 10 patients obtained opposite results, while no positive results were found in a healthy control group (n = 12). Based on standard curve calibration, several thousand viruses per minute were observed in the tested exhalations. Furthermore, referring to the average tidal volume data of adults, it was estimated that an exhaled SARS-CoV-2 concentration of approximately one copy/mL is detectable for COVID-19 patients. This study validates the original concept of breath detection of SARS-CoV-2 using SAC combined with RT-PCR.

【 授权许可】

CC BY