title: Microfluidic-based isolation of bacteria from whole blood for sepsis diagnostics.
abstract: Blood-stream infections (BSI) remain a major health challenge, with an increasing incidence worldwide and a high mortality rate. Early treatment with appropriate antibiotics can reduce BSI-related morbidity and mortality, but success requires rapid identification of the infecting organisms. The rapid, culture-independent diagnosis of BSI could be significantly facilitated by straightforward isolation of highly purified bacteria from whole blood. We present a microfluidic-based, sample-preparation system that rapidly and selectively lyses all blood cells while it extracts intact bacteria for downstream analysis. Whole blood is exposed to a mild detergent, which lyses most blood cells, and then to osmotic shock using deionized water, which eliminates the remaining white blood cells. The recovered bacteria are 100% viable, which opens up possibilities for performing drug susceptibility tests and for nucleic-acid-based molecular identification.
authors.affiliation: Science for Life Laboratory, Division of Proteomics and Nanobiotechnology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Solna, PO Box 1031, 17121, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Sergey
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zelenin
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hansson
authors.forename: Sahar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ardabili
authors.forename: Harisha
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ramachandraiah
authors.forename: Hjalmar
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Brismar
authors.forename: Aman
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Russom
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001431:Bacteriological Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D050296:Microbial Viability; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*; D018805:Sepsis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000379:methods