A Rapid Blood Test To Determine the Active Status and Duration of Acute Viral Infection

Abstract

The ability to rapidly detect and diagnose acute viral infections is crucial for infectious disease control and management. Serology testing for the presence of virus-elicited antibodies in blood is one of the methods used commonly for clinical diagnosis of viral infections. However, standard serology-based tests have a significant limitation: they cannot easily distinguish active from past, historical infections. As a result, it is difficult to determine whether a patient is currently infected with a virus or not, and on an optimal course of action, based off of positive serology testing responses. Here, we report a nanoparticle-enabled blood test that can help overcome this major challenge. The new test is based on the analysis of virus-elicited immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody present in the protein corona of a gold nanoparticle surface upon mixing the gold nanoparticles with blood sera. Studies conducted on mouse models of influenza A virus infection show that the test gives positive responses only in the presence of a recent acute viral infection, approximately between day 14 and day 21 following the infection, and becomes negative thereafter. When used together with the traditional serology testing, the nanoparticle test can determine clearly whether a positive serology response is due to a recent or historical viral infection. This new blood test can provide critical clinical information needed to optimize further treatment and/or to determine if further quarantining should be continued.

A One-Minute Blood Test to Monitor Immune Responses in COVID-19 Patients and Predict Clinical Risks of Developing Moderate to Severe Symptoms

“…We found the D2Dx immunity test score changes dramatically in animals during pregnancy and parturition, and these changes reflect precisely the type of immunity changes that are expected during the reproduction process ( 29, 30 ). We also observed clearly the test score change in animals with virus infections compared to non-infected controls, and these test score changes mirror almost exactly the humoral immune responses in animals upon infection ( 28, 31 ).…”

“…Our laboratory has recently developed a rapid blood test, D2Dx immunity test, to monitor the humoral immune status and responses in humans and animals (28)(29)(30)(31)(32). The test uses a gold nanoparticle (AuNP) as a pseudo virus pathogen to probe the humoral immunity in blood plasma or serum samples, as illustrated in Figure 1.…”

Updated insight into COVID-19 disease and health management to combat the pandemic

“…127 The success of such serology-based tests and their commercialization will provide rapid answers to suspected COVID-19 patients, and subsequently contribute to increased efficiency in contact tracing and precautionary isolation approaches that will truly contribute to efficient containment of the disease. 128 , 129 , 130 …”

Analysis of the Human Plasma Proteome Using Multi‐Nanoparticle Protein Corona for Detection of Alzheimer's Disease

“…The scientific communities in multiple disciplines have long been working to develop blood-based diagnostic technologies. [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Indeed, recent studies have tested the feasibility of employing the personalized-PC formed on NPs to detect pancreatic cancer or assess the status of acute viral infection using dynamic-light scattering [38,39] and SDS-PAGE. [40] However, these approaches need further development to improve specificity, prediction rate, and sensitivity.…”