UTIs Diagnosed with Genetic Analysis of Cell-Free DNA

These different layers of information were accessible from a single assay and individually agreed with corresponding clinical tests based on quantitative PCR, conventional bacterial culture, and urinalysis. Furthermore, cfDNA revealed the frequent occurrence of diseases that remained undiagnosed with conventional diagnostic protocols.

“We found that we could deduce the fraction of the bacterial population that is growing, by carefully looking at the places in the genome where the cell-free DNA was derived from” said senior author Dr. Iwijn De Vlaminck, professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell University. "Metagenomic analysis of the cell-free DNA can also be used to infer which antimicrobial drugs may work best against a particular infection."

The paper describing genetic analysis of cell-free DNA in urine specimens was published in the June 20, 2018, online edition of the journal Nature Communications.

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