NATURI V1 Nasal Lavage - Viro3

BACKGROUND: 50% to 80% of asthma exacerbations are precipitated by viral upper respiratory tract infections (RTI), yet the influence of viral pathogen diversity on asthma outcomes is poorly understood due to the limited scope and throughput of conventional viral detection methods. METHODS: We investigated the capability of the Virochip, a DNA microarray-based viral detection platform, to characterize the viral diversity in RTIs in asthmatic and non-asthmatic adults. RESULTS: The Virochip detected viruses in a higher proportion of samples (65%) than culture isolation (17%), while exhibiting high concordance (98%), sensitivity (97%) and specificity (98%) with pathogen-specific PCR. A similar spectrum of viruses was identified in the RTIs from each patient subgroup; however, unexpected diversity among the coronaviruses (HCoVs) and HRVs was revealed. All but one of the HCoVs corresponded to the newly-recognized HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-HKU1 viruses, and over 20 different serotypes of HRVs were detected, including a set of 5 divergent isolates that form a distinct genetic subgroup. CONCLUSIONS: The Virochip can detect both known and novel variants of viral pathogens present in RTIs. Given the diversity detected here, larger scale studies will be necessary to determine if particular substrains of viruses confer an elevated risk of asthma exacerbation Keywords: Virus detection We analyzed a series of 82 microarrays on which were hybed RNA randomly amplified from nasal lavage of outpatient cold specimens.