Proteomic Assay Pinpoints Cause of Upper Respiratory Disease

A novel proteomics assay performed on nasal wash fluid rapidly determines if runny nose and other respiratory symptoms are due to cold or flu virus infection.

Improved approaches to diagnose acute respiratory virus infections could decrease inappropriate antibacterial use and provide care-providers with critical information needed to guide treatment.

Towards this end, investigators at Duke University sought to characterize immune responses in the inflamed nasal passage through proteomic analysis of nasopharyngeal lavage in human subjects experimentally challenged with influenza A/H3N2 or human rhinovirus, and to develop targeted assays measuring peptides involved in this host response allowing classification of acute respiratory virus infection.

They reported in the February 20, 2017, online edition of the journal EBioMedicine that unbiased proteomic discovery analysis of nasal wash fluid identified 3285 peptides corresponding to 438 unique proteins, and revealed that infection with H3N2 induced significant alterations in protein expression. More...