환자의 혈장으로 20분 내에 코로나 바이러스 진단하기

Positive COVID-19 cases caused an agglutination or a clustering of red blood cells, which was easily identifiable to the naked eye. Researchers were able to retrieve positive or negative readings in about 20 minutes.

While the current swab / PCR tests are used to identify people who are currently positive with COVID-19, the agglutination assay can determine whether someone had been recently infected once the infection is resolved—and could potentially be used to detect antibodies raised in response to vaccination to aid clinical trials.

"Detection of antibodies in patient plasma or serum involves pipetting a mixture of reagent red blood cells (RRBCs) and antibody-containing serum/plasma onto a gel card containing separation media, incubating the card for 5-15 minutes, and using a centrifuge to separate agglutinated cells from free cells,"

Tests on 10 clinical blood samples involved incubating patient plasma or serum with red blood cells previously coated with short peptides representing pieces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

If the patient sample contained antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, these antibodies would bind to peptides and result in aggregation of the red blood cells. Researchers then used gel cards to separate aggregated cells from free cells, in order to see a line of aggregated cells indicating a positive response. In negative samples, no aggregates in the gel cards were observed.

"We found that by producing bioconjugates of anti-D-IgG and peptides from SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and immobilizing these to RRBCs, selective agglutination in gel cards was observed in the plasma collected from patients recently infected with SARS-CoV-2 in comparison to healthy plasma and negative controls,"

 

 

gel card?

agglutinated된 red blood cell을 분리해내는 gel 중간에 있고, centrifuge를 돌리면 엉기지 않은 것들은 아래로 내려가고,엉긴 것들은 gel을 투과하지 못한다. 

 

reference

Diana Alves et al. Rapid Gel Card Agglutination Assays for Serological Analysis Following SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Humans, ACS Sensors (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.0c01050