1. Rapid, Culture-Free Detection of Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia
- Author
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Dilek Ince, Bradley Ford, Jeff Miguel, Karen C Clark, Patricia L. Winokur, James O. McNamara, Katie S. Flenker, and Elliot Burghardt
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Bacterial Diseases ,Time Factors ,Physiology ,Hydrolases ,Staphylococcus ,lcsh:Medicine ,Bacteremia ,medicine.disease_cause ,Pathology and Laboratory Medicine ,Biochemistry ,Blood plasma ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,Micrococcal Nuclease ,Blood culture ,lcsh:Science ,Multidisciplinary ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,biology ,Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia ,Hematology ,Staphylococcal Infections ,Blood proteins ,3. Good health ,Body Fluids ,Enzymes ,Precipitation Techniques ,Bacterial Pathogens ,Blood ,Infectious Diseases ,Staphylococcus aureus ,Medical Microbiology ,Engineering and Technology ,Anatomy ,Pathogens ,Micrococcal nuclease ,Research Article ,Heat Treatment ,Nucleases ,Staphylococcal infections ,Research and Analysis Methods ,Microbiology ,Sensitivity and Specificity ,Blood Plasma ,03 medical and health sciences ,DNA-binding proteins ,medicine ,Immunoprecipitation ,Humans ,Microbial Pathogens ,Enzyme Assays ,Plasma Proteins ,Bacteria ,lcsh:R ,Organisms ,Biology and Life Sciences ,Proteins ,Reproducibility of Results ,medicine.disease ,030104 developmental biology ,Manufacturing Processes ,Blood Culture ,biology.protein ,Enzymology ,lcsh:Q - Abstract
S. aureus bacteremia (SAB) is a common condition with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Current methods used to diagnose SAB take at least a day, and often longer. Patients with suspected bacteremia must therefore be empirically treated, often unnecessarily, while assay results are pending. In this proof-of-concept study, we describe an inexpensive assay that detects SAB via the detection of micrococcal nuclease (an enzyme secreted by S. aureus) in patient plasma samples in less than three hours. In total, 17 patient plasma samples from culture-confirmed S. aureus bacteremic individuals were tested. 16 of these yielded greater nuclease assay signals than samples from uninfected controls or individuals with non-S. aureus bacteremia. These results suggest that a nuclease-detecting assay may enable the rapid and inexpensive diagnosis of SAB, which is expected to substantially reduce the mortality and morbidity that result from this condition.
- Published
- 2016