Detection of Volatile Organic Compounds in Brucella abortus-Seropositive Bison

Abstract

Brucellosis is of great public health and economic importance worldwide. Detection of brucellosis currently relies on serologic testing of an antibody response to Brucella infection, which suffers from cross-sensitivities to other antibody responses. Here we present a new method for identifying Brucella exposure that is based on profiling volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath. Breath samples from Brucella-seropositive bison and controls were chemically analyzed and demonstrated statistically significant differences in the concentration profiles of five VOCs. A point-of-care device incorporating an array of nanomaterial-based sensors could identify VOC patterns indicative of Brucella exposure with excellent discriminative power, using a statistical algorithm. We show that the patterns were not affected by the animals' environment and that the discriminative power of the approach was stable over time. The Brucella-indicative VOCs and collective patterns that were identified in this pilot study could lead to the development of a novel diagnostic screening test for quickly detecting infected animals chute-side, pen-side, or even remotely in populations of free-ranging ungulates. The promising preliminary results presented encourage subsequent larger scale trials in order to further evaluate the proposed method.

Use of fecal volatile organic compound analysis to discriminate between non-vaccinated and BCG—Vaccinated cattle prior to and after Mycobacterium bovis challenge

“…Based upon the results of our analysis, we were successful in achieving this goal. The results of this study, combined with our previous studies [30, 32, 38, 39] provide evidence that breath and fecal VOC analysis have merit for disease surveillance in ruminant species. Our work provides data that adds to existing studies in this area, and encourages future development of VOC analyses for disease diagnosis in human and veterinary medical fields.…”

Evaluation of Volatile Organic Compounds Obtained from Breath and Feces to Detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex in Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) in Doñana National Park, Spain

“…The animal was manually restrained in a Panepinto Sling®(Panepinto and Associates, Masonville, CO, USA). VOC were collected from breath as described in [22]. Briefly, a modified equine nebulization mask (Aeromask, Trudell Medical International, London, ON, Canada) was placed over the animal's muzzle.…”

Use of faecal volatile organic compound analysis for ante-mortem discrimination between CWD-positive, -negative exposed, and -known negative white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

“…In humans, a validated breath VOC assay is used to detect Helicobacter pylori infection (60)(61), and breath, biofluids, and faecal analyses are being explored for diagnosis of metabolic, neoplastic, and infectious disease; dementia; and organ transplant success [39][40][41][42][43]. In domestic and wild ruminants (e.g., cattle (Bos taurus), goats (Capra aegagrus hircus), WTD, bison (Bison bison)), breath and faecal VOC analyses have been used to detect ketosis; bovine tuberculosis; brucellosis; bovine respiratory disease; and Johne's disease [44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. In other species, VOC analysis of serum has been explored for detection of bovine tuberculosis [51].…”