Identification of Herpes simplex virus type 1 by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS)

Abstract

Purpose : Herpes simplex virus (HSV) keratitis is a highly visually-disabling disease in both the neonatal and adult population. HSV infection is the leading cause of corneal blindness in the United States and unilateral infectious blindness worldwide. Recently, there are no methods that can quickly identified the virus. Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) are proven to be a reliable identification method for the diagnosis of bacterial and fungal infections. This study aims to determine whether MALDI-TOF MS could be a reliable method for the identification of HSV in infected Human corneal epithelial cells (HCEC)and infected Balb/c mice.

Methods : HSV infected HCE cells and infected keratitis in Balb/C mice were used for the MALDI-TOF MS in vitro/vivo analysis. The protein expression of all the samples and the resulted profiles of the infected and uninfected samples were analyzed with SARAMIS system. Eighteen infected HCE cells with 3 duplicates, 15 infected Balb/C mice with 3 duplicates were used for created a HSV-1 superspectrum database. Another 6 infected HCE cells and 12 infected Balb/C mice were used for the blind test of the HSV database.

Results : The cluster analysis for the spectra suggested that the difference between uninfected and infected samples was not obvious. However, the analysis of superspectra between two samples by the SARAMIS system suggests that some spectra rose in the infected samples, and there are more differential spectra in the suspension. A part of differential spectra was chosen for the creation of a HSV-1 database. The results of HSV-1 database indicated that the MALDI-TOF MS can distinguish HSV-1 infected samples from uninfected samples. The results of blind test showed that the sensitivity and specificity of HSV infected cells were 83.3% and 100%, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of infected mice were 90.9% and 100%, respectively.

Conclusions : The results revealed that MALDI-TOF MS is potential an effective and time-saving tool for the identification of the HSV-1 infected samples.

This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.