Analysis of breath specimans for biomarkers of Plasmodium falciparum infection

Amalia Z. Berna, James S. McCarthy, X. Rosalind Wang, Kevin J. Saliba, Florence G. Bravo, Julie Cassells, Benjamin Padovan, Stephen C. Trowell

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75 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Currently, the majority of diagnoses of malaria rely on a combination of the patient’s clinical presentation and the visualization of parasites on a stained blood film. Breath offers an attractive alternative to blood as the basis for simple, noninvasive diagnosis of infectious diseases. In this study, breath samples were collected from individuals during controlled malaria to determine whether specific malaria-associated volatiles could be detected in breath. We identified 9 compounds whose concentrations varied significantly over the course of malaria: carbon dioxide, isoprene, acetone, benzene, cyclohexanone, and 4 thioethers. The latter group, consisting of allyl methyl sulfide, 1-methylthio-propane, (Z)-1-methylthio-1-propene, and (E)-1-methylthio-1-propene, had not previously been associated with any disease or condition. Before the availability of antimalarial drug treatment, there was evidence of concurrent 48-hour cyclical changes in the levels of both thioethers and parasitemia. When thioether concentrations were subjected to a phase shift of 24 hours, a direct correlation between the parasitemia and volatile levels was revealed. Volatile levels declined monotonically approximately 6.5 hours after initial drug treatment, correlating with clearance of parasitemia. No thioethers were detected in in vitro cultures of Plasmodium falciparum. The metabolic origin of the thioethers is not known, but results suggest that interplay between host and parasite metabolic pathways is involved in the production of these thioethers.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1120-1128
Number of pages9
JournalThe Journal of Infectious Diseases
Volume212
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Open Access - Access Right Statement

© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Societyof America. This is an OpenAccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected].

Keywords

  • acetone
  • malaria
  • odors
  • volatile organic compounds

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