PEG36-Nle(O-Bzl)-Met(O)2-Oic-Abu-ACC was designed in house and synthesized by CPC Scientific Inc (San Jose, CA, Fig. S1). Amino-PEG36-acid (CAS: 196936-04-6) and 2-(7-amino-2-oxochromen-4-yl)acetamide (CAS:296236-23-2) were used for the synthesis. The synthesized sensor was resuspended in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-grade water with a concentration of 200 µM.

Abstract

An accurate diagnosis is critical to reducing mortality in people with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs). Current microbiological culture is time-consuming, and nucleic acid amplification-based molecular technologies cannot distinguish between colonization and infection. Previously, we described developing a sampling system for effectively capturing biomolecules from human breath. We identified a new class of proteoform markers of protease activation, termed proteolytic products of infection, for detecting LRTIs in people with mechanical ventilation. Here, we further developed an in vitro assay by designing a specific substrate sensor for human neutrophil elastase (HNE) to detect LRTIs in breath samples. In the proof-of-concept study, we then applied this in vitro assay to breath samples collected from intubated patients and healthy volunteers. The findings revealed that the LRTI group demonstrated a significant mean differential, showing a 9.8-fold elevation in measured HNE activity compared with the non-LRTI group and a 9.2-fold compared with healthy volunteers. The in vitro assay’s diagnostic potential was assessed by constructing a receiver operating characteristic curve, resulting in an area under the curve of 0.987. Using an optimal threshold for HNE at 0.2 pM, the sensitivity was determined to be 1.0 and the specificity to be 0.867. Further correlation analysis revealed a strong positive relationship between the measured HNE activity and the protein concentration in the breath samples. Our results demonstrate that this breath-based in vitro assay provides high diagnostic performance for LRTIs, suggesting that the technology may be useful in the near term for the accurate diagnosis of LRTIs.

Keywords: human breath, noninvasive diagnostics, mass spectrometry, lower respiratory tract infection

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  • Boehm, M., Beaumont, K., Jones, R.M., Kalgutkar, A.S., Zhang, L., Atkinson, K., Bai, G., Brown, J.A., Eng, H., Goetz, G.H. and Holder, B.R. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2017).

    1. Pfizer Worldwide Research & Development, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
    2. Pfizer Worldwide Research & Development, Groton, Connecticut 06340, United States

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  • Bainbridge, Travis W., et al. Scientific Reports 7.1 (2017): 12524.

    • Protein Chemistry, Molecular Oncology, Discovery Chemistry, Cancer Immunology, and Neuroscience. Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA, 94080, USA

    "ANP FAP and aP NIRF were synthesized by CPC Scientific (Sunnyvale, CA)… Another internally-quenched FRET peptide substrate (ANPFAP) for FAP has recently been reported and demonstrated for use as an activity-based, in vivo imaging tool. The peptide sequence contains two internal Gly-Pro dipeptide motifs, susceptible to FAP cleavage and a Cy5.5/QSY21, quenched-FRET pair."

  • Coorens, Maarten, et al. The Journal of Immunology 199.4 (2017): 1418-1428.

    "CATH-2 and LL-37 were synthesized by Fmoc-chemistry at CPC Scientific (Sunnyvale, CA)."

  • Tcholakov, I., Grimshaw, C.E., Shi, L., Kiryanov, A., Murphy, S.T., Larson, C.J., Plonowski, A. and Ermolieff, J. Bioscience Reports 37, no. 3 (2017): BSR20170275.

    • Departments of In Vitro Pharmacology, Immunology, Enzymology and Biophysical Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, External Innovation, Metabolic Disease, In Vitro Pharmacology, and Gastrointestinal and Enterology Discovery Unit, Takeda California, Inc., 10410 Science Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, U.S.A

    The substrate used for our PHD2 kinetic study was a 17-mer peptide mimicking the sequence of HIF-1a surrounding the Pro564 residue hydroxylated by the PHD enzymes (Biotin-DLEMLAPYIPMDDDFQL). The substrate used for FIH1 was a 34-mer peptide mimicking the sequence of HIF-1α surrounding residue Asn803 (DESGLPQLTSYDCEVNAPIQGSRNLLQGEELLRAL). Both peptides were synthesized by CPC Scientific Inc.

    June 30th, 2017Citations
  • Wilson, Sarah S., et al. PLoS Pathogens 13.6 (2017): e1006446.

    "Cryptdin 2 (UniProtKB: P28309, LRDLVCYCRTRGCKRRERMNGTCRKGHLMYTLCCR)... obtained by oxidative refolding of partially purified linear peptides (synthesized by CPC Scientific...) and purifying the correctly folded species by reverse-phase high-pressure liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). Purity was determined by analytical RP-HPLC, and the mass of the disulfide-bonded peptides was verified by high mass accuracy liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry."

  • Metal chelating peptide Pep-1L-NOTA

    Sattiraju, A., et al. Oncotarget 2017, 8 (26), 42997-43007.

    For Ac-225 labeling, the prepared DOTA-Pep-1L (CPC-scientific, San Jose, CA) was incubated with Ac-225 at 70°C for 50 minutes. The TLC plates were scanned on a BioScan Imaging Scanner. Cu-64 was purchased from Washington University in St. Louis. The custom peptide specific to IL13RA2 and a scrambled peptide were conjugated with NOTA by CPC scientific Inc (San Jose, CA). Both the peptides, Pep-1L and scrambled peptide-NOTA were radiolabeled with Cu-64 according to the previously reported methods [15].

  • Puthenveetil, Sujiet, et al. PloS One 12.5 (2017): e0178452.

    1. Worldwide Medicinal Chemistry, Pfizer Global R&D, Groton, Connecticut, United States of America.
    2. Pfizer Oncology Research, Pearl River, NY, United States of America.

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  • Kwon, Ester J., et al. Advanced Materials 29.35 (2017).

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    Noland, Cameron L., et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114.30 (2017): E6044-E6053.

    • Departments of Structural Biology, Infectious Diseases, Biochemical and Cellular Pharmacology, Pathology, Translational Immunology, and Biomolecular Resource Group, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080.

    "..peptide substrates were synthesized based on the Pal lipoprotein, Pal peptideshort (Pam2Cys-SSNKNGGK-Biotin; CPC Scientific, Inc.).."

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