VOC-Based Probes, a New Set of Analytical Tools to Monitor Patient Health from Blood Sample. Proof of Concept on Tracking COVID-19 Infection

Anal Chem. 2023 Aug 8;95(31):11572-11577. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.3c01732. Epub 2023 Jul 5.

Abstract

Induced volatolomics is an emerging field that holds promise for many biomedical applications including disease detection and prognosis. In this pilot study, we report the first use of a cocktail of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)-based probes to highlight new metabolic markers allowing disease prognosis. In this pilot study, we specifically targeted a set of circulating glycosidases whose activities could be associated with critical COVID-19 illness. Starting from blood sample collection, our approach relies on the incubation of VOC-based probes in plasma samples. Once activated, the probes released a set of VOCs in the sample headspace. The dynamic monitoring of the signals of VOC tracers enabled the identification of three dysregulated glycosidases in the initial phase after infection, for which preliminary machine learning analyses suggested an ability to anticipate critical disease development. This study demonstrates that our VOC-based probes are a new set of analytical tools that can provide access to biological signals until now unavailable to biologists and clinicians and which could be included in biomedical research to properly construct multifactorial therapy algorithms, necessary for personalized medicine.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19* / diagnosis
  • Glycoside Hydrolases
  • Humans
  • Pilot Projects
  • Volatile Organic Compounds* / analysis

Substances

  • Glycoside Hydrolases
  • Volatile Organic Compounds