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Analytical and clinical validation of multiplex droplet digital PCR assay for detecting pathogenic fungal infection in lungs.

Authors :
Guo, Jian
Tian, Wenjie
Lin, Huiping
Hu, Liang
Gao, Xuejuan
Xia, Jiang
Yu, Hao
Chen, Hui
Li, Wei
Wu, Wenjuan
Source :
Mycology: An International Journal on Fungal Biology. Mar2024, Vol. 15 Issue 1, p110-119. 10p.
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

Pulmonary invasive fungal infection in immunocompromised hosts is difficult to diagnose, and current tools for diagnosis or monitoring of response to antifungal treatments have inherent limitations. Droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) has emerged as a promising tool for pulmonary pathogen detection with high sensitivity. This study presents a novel ddPCR panel for rapid and sensitive identification of pulmonary fungal pathogens. First, a ddPCR method for detecting three fungal genera, including Pneumocystis, Aspergillus, and Cryptococcus, was established and evaluated. Then, the clinical validation performance of ddPCR was compared with that of qPCR using 170 specimens, and the 6 specimens with inconsistent results were further verified by metagenomics next-generation sequencing, which yielded results consistent with the ddPCR findings. Finally, the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the efficiency of ddPCR. While the qPCR identified 16 (9.41%) cases of Aspergillus and 6 (3.53%) cases of Pneumocystis, ddPCR detected 20 (11.76%) Aspergillus cases and 8 (4.71%) Pneumocystis cases. The AUC for Aspergillus, Cryptococcus, and Pneumocystis was 0.974, 0.998, and 0.975, respectively. These findings demonstrated that the ddPCR assay is a highly sensitive method for identifying pathogens responsible for invasive fungal pulmonary infections, and is a promising tool for early diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
21501203
Volume :
15
Issue :
1
Database :
Academic Search Index
Journal :
Mycology: An International Journal on Fungal Biology
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
176293988
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/21501203.2023.2296941