High throughput identification and quantification of fungi using high resolution

描述（由申请人提供）：真菌分子诊断仍然落后于细菌和病毒的几个很好的原因。真菌滴度在受感染的样品中较低，真菌具有难治性细胞壁，并且靶基因与竞争和数字上占优势的人类序列具有更多的同源性。此外，危及生命的感染的发生率很低，这就要求分子测定必须非常经济。尽管如此，真菌感染通常会危及生命，其早期检测、物种识别和耐药突变对于成功干预至关重要。个别真菌物种对越来越多的抗真菌药物具有耐药性，或者已经获得了使特定药物无效或不太有效的耐药性突变。基于培养的真菌、种属或亲和性鉴定是不够的，因为孵育时间超过了有效治疗的机会窗口，并且因为来自感染患者的许多样品是培养阴性的。所需要的是一种基于高通量PCR的方法，该方法不依赖于培养，对每ml血液或其他组织类型中一个真菌细胞的水平敏感，并且能够检测物种和抗性突变。这一目标要求很高，这也解释了为什么缺乏可靠的商业工具。缺乏商业上可用的PCR诊断模式一直是临床医生的主要失望，揭示了诊断能力的主要缺陷。我们建议测试和优化使用一种新的工具，高分辨率熔解分析，结合更有效的泛真菌引物，以满足这些需求。早期迹象表明，HRM分析可以直接从PCR反应中区分所有具有重要临床意义的主要真菌物种，而无需任何额外的动手努力，成本或延迟。多项研究证实，诊断延迟，特别是准确的诊断是直接导致发病率和死亡率增加的原因。迫切需要新的方法。公共卫生相关性：有一个未完成的临床任务，建立和实施灵敏，快速，和具体的诊断工具，用于检测，定量，并直接从临床样品中鉴定真菌物种。真菌感染在高风险患者人群中仍然很常见，其归因死亡率高得惊人。症状前的早期检测和识别对于降低这些比率至关重要。鉴于常规霉菌感染检测方法存在特异性低和生存能力差的问题，未来将有更多种类的霉菌通过PCR被鉴定为具有感染性，并且这些被错误鉴定的种类可能对抗真菌药物的反应很差，这应该不会让人感到惊讶。此外，随着新的抗真菌药物的开发和测试，PCR检测和鉴定将成为选择最合适的药物和跟踪治疗进展的关键工具。这些感染的物流（低发病率但高死亡率;最高风险患者的不精确识别）需要既精确又非常经济的测试。目前所有的测试都需要多次检测或昂贵的后续测试来确定物种和抗性。我们建议测试是否高分辨率熔解曲线分析（HRM分析），再加上定量PCR使用泛真菌引物，提供了一个解决方案，这一长期的临床需求。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fungal molecular diagnostics still lags behind bacterial and viral counterparts for several good reasons. Fungal titers are low in infected samples, fungi have refractory cell walls, and target genes have much more homology to competing and numerically dominant human sequences. In addition, the incidence of life-threatening infections is low, imposing a requirement that the molecular assays need to be very economical. Nevertheless, fungal infections are often life-threatening and their early detection, identification of species and resistance mutations, is crucial to successful intervention. Individual fungal species are resistant to some of the growing list of antifungal agents, or have acquired resistance mutations that make specific agents ineffective or less effective. Culture based identification of fungi, species, or susceptibilities are not adequate, since incubation times exceed the window of opportunity for effective therapy, and since many samples from infected patients are cultures negative. What is needed is a high throughput PCR based method that is independent of culture, sensitive to the level of one fungal cell per ml of blood or other tissue types, and capable of detecting species and resistance mutations. This goal is very demanding, explaining the lack of a reliable commercial tool. The absence of a commercially available PCR diagnostic modality has been a major disappointment to clinicians, revealing a major deficiency in diagnostic capability. We propose to test and optimize the use of a new tool, high resolution melt analysis, in combination with more effective panfungal primers, to address these needs. Early indications suggest that HRM analysis can distinguish all major fungal species of major clinical significance directly from the PCR reaction without any additional hands-on efforts, costs, or delays. Multiple studies confirm that DELAY in diagnosis particularly accurate diagnosis is directly responsible for increased morbidity and mortality. New methods are urgently needed. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: There is an unfulfilled clinical mandate to establish and implement sensitive, rapid, and specific diagnostic tools for detecting, quantifying, and identifying fungal species directly from clinical samples. Fungal infections are still frequent among high risk patient populations and their attributed mortality rates are alarmingly high. Early, presymptomatic detection and identification is crucial to reduce those rates. It should surprise no one, given problems with low specificity and poor viability in conventional assays for mold infections, that many more species of molds will be identified in the future by PCR as infectious, and that these misidentified species may respond poorly to antifungals. Furthermore, as new antifungals are being developed and tested, PCR detection and identification will be a crucial tool in selecting the most appropriate drug, and in following the progression of therapy. Logistics of these infections (low incidence but high mortality; imprecise identification of highest risk patients) demands tests that are both precise and very economical. All current tests require multiple assays or expensive follow-up tests to identify species and resistance. We propose to test whether high resolution melt curve analysis (HRM analysis), coupled with quantitative PCR using panfungal primers, offers a solution to this long-standing clinical need.