Bacterial diseases

New Test Screens for All Known Bacterial Infections at Once

A new test, developed at the Center for Infection and Immunity (CII), can screen for all known bacterial infections and is 1000 times more sensitive than conventional screening methods.

 

The diagnostic platform, which is also capable of screening for signs of antibiotic resistance, was developed by scientists at the Center for Infection and Immunity in the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

 

Because current methods to test for bacterial infections, including sepsis, can take up to several days to provide results, broad spectrum antibiotics are often prescribed in the meantime, which, according to the CII scientists, contributes to antibiotic resistance. The new test, BacCapSeq (bacterial capture sequencing), currently provides results in 70 hours, but researchers believe that this timeframe will be decreased with future advances in computing power.

 

BacCapSeq uses a probe set consisting of 4.2 million oligonucleotides based on the Pathosystems Resource Integration Center (PATRIC) database, the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD), and the Virulence Factor Database (VFDB), “representing 307 bacterial species that include all known human-pathogenic species, known antimicrobial resistance genes, and known virulence factors, respectively.”

 

Following tests using nucleic acid from blood containing DNA from several bacteria, as well as blood samples from patients with unexplained sepsis, BacCapSeq consistently exceeded traditional methods and, at times, detected infections missed by the alternative method.

 

“BacCapSeq is a method for differential diagnosis of bacterial infections and defining antimicrobial sensitivity profiles that has the potential to reduce morbidity and mortality, health care costs, and the inappropriate use of antibiotics that contributes to the development of antimicrobial resistance.”

 

—Michael Potts

 

References:

Allicock OM, Guo C, Uhlemann A, et al. BacCapSeq: a platform for diagnosis and characterization of bacterial infections [published online October 23, 2018]. mBio. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02007-18.

 

Breakthrough test screens for all known bacterial infections [press release]. New York, New York. October 23, 2018. https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/breakthrough-test-screens-all-known-bacterial-infections.