PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Stratifying patients according to disease severity has been a major hurdle during the COVID-19 pandemic. This usually requires evaluating the levels of several biomarkers, which may be cumbersome when rapid decisions are required. In this manuscript we show that a single nanoparticle aggregation test can be used to distinguish patients that require intensive care from those that have already been discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU). It consists of diluting a platelet-free plasma sample and then adding gold nanoparticles. The nanoparticles aggregate to a larger extent when the samples are obtained from a patient in the ICU. This changes the color of the colloidal suspension, which can be evaluated by measuring the pixel intensity of a photograph. Although the exact factor or combination of factors behind the different aggregation behavior is unknown, control experiments demonstrate that the presence of proteins in the samples is crucial for the test to work. Principal component analysis demonstrates that the test result is highly correlated to biomarkers of prognosis and inflammation that are commonly used to evaluate the severity of COVID-19 patients. The results shown here pave the way to develop nanoparticle aggregation assays that classify COVID-19 patients according to disease severity, which could be useful to de-escalate care safely and make a better use of hospital resources.
摘要：
在COVID-19大流行期间，根据疾病严重程度对患者进行分层一直是一个主要障碍。这通常需要评估几种生物标志物的水平，当需要快速决策时，这可能会很麻烦。在这份手稿中，我们表明，可以使用单个纳米颗粒聚集测试来区分需要重症监护的患者与已经从重症监护病房（ICU）出院的患者。它包括稀释无血小板血浆样品，然后加入金纳米颗粒。当从ICU中的患者获得样品时,纳米颗粒在更大程度上聚集。这改变了胶体悬浮液的颜色,这可以通过测量照片的像素强度来评估。尽管不同聚集行为背后的确切因素或因素组合是未知的，对照实验表明，样品中蛋白质的存在对于测试工作至关重要。主成分分析表明，检测结果与常用于评估COVID-19患者严重程度的预后和炎症生物标志物高度相关。这里显示的结果为开发纳米颗粒聚集测定法铺平了道路，该测定法根据疾病严重程度对COVID-19患者进行分类，这可能有助于安全地降低护理水平，并更好地利用医院资源。
