Evaluation of pathogen specific urinary peptides in tick-borne illnesses

Area of Science:

• Biochemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Infectious Diseases

Background:

• Tick-borne illnesses pose diagnostic challenges.
• Current diagnostic methods may lack sensitivity or specificity.
• Detecting pathogen-derived biomarkers in urine is an attractive diagnostic approach.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply highly sensitive mass spectrometry for detecting tick-borne pathogen peptides in human urine.
• To investigate the presence of these peptides in patients with acute Lyme disease, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and suspected tick-borne illnesses.
• To correlate the number of detected pathogen peptides with clinical symptoms.

Main Methods:

• Utilized mass spectrometry enhanced by affinity hydrogel particles for high sensitivity (2.5 pg/mL).
• Targeted a panel of 10 tick-borne pathogens including bacteria and viruses.
• Defined specificity based on 100% amino acid sequence identity with pathogen proteins and exclusion of human sequences.

Main Results:

• Detected pathogen peptides in 9/10 acute Lyme Borreliosis patients with zero false positives in 250 controls.
• Identified peptides in 40% of samples from patients with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome and suspected tick-borne illnesses (59/148).
• Identified 279 distinct tick-borne pathogen-derived peptides, with peptide counts correlating with symptom presence (p=0.010).

Conclusions:

• Nanotechnology-enhanced mass spectrometry offers unprecedented sensitivity for diagnosing tick-borne infections.
• This method can identify specific pathogen peptides in urine, aiding in the diagnosis of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.
• The technique shows potential as a valuable tool for clinical diagnostics and research in tick-borne diseases.