Development of a bead-based suspension array for the detection of pathogens in acute respiratory tract infections

Chen, Yu-Sheng
Li, Hong-Ru
Zhang, Wei
Hua, Zhi-Dan
Lin, Xiao-Hong
Lin, Meng-Qing
Huang, Wen-Sen
Huang, Li-Ping
Yu, Xiao-Li
Xu, Neng-Luan
Lin, Ming
Xie, Bao-Song
Shen, Xiao-Na
Xie, Jian-Feng
Wang, Yi
Huang, Meng
Wu, Yan-An
Hu, Xin-Lan

¹Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Fujian Provicial Hospital, Fujian Provincial Medical College, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou 350001, China
²Department of Viral Diseases, Fujian Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Fuzhou 350001, China
³Shanghai Tellgen Life Science Co. Ltd, Shanghai 201203,China
⁴Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, Fujian Provincial Hospital, Fuzhou 350001, China

* Joint first authors.

Received January 10, 2016

Accepted April 6, 2016

Experimental Biology & Medicine 241(14):p 1551-1558, August 2016. | DOI: 10.1177/1535370216647128

We developed a high-throughput bead-based suspension array for simultaneous detection of 20 respiratory tract pathogens in clinical specimens. Pathogen-specific genes were amplified and hybridized to probes coupled to carboxyl-encoded microspheres. Fluorescence intensities generated via the binding of phycoerythrin-conjugated streptavidin with biotin-labeled targets were measured by the Luminex 100 bead-based suspension array system. The bead-based suspension array detected bacteria in a significantly higher number of samples compared to the conventional culture. There was no significant difference in the detection rate of atypical pathogensatypical pathogens or viruses between the bead-based suspension array and real-time PCR. This technology can play a significant role in screening patients with pneumonia.