A new test called ViroCap can detect thousands of viruses that make people and animals sick.
The test is as sensitive as the gold-standard laboratory tests—called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. However, even the most expansive PCR assays can only screen for up to about 20 similar viruses at the same time. ViroCap looks for everything.
“With this test, you don’t have to know what you’re looking for,” says Gregory Storch, a professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “It casts a broad net and can efficiently detect viruses that are present at very low levels. We think the test will be especially useful in situations where a diagnosis remains elusive after standard testing or in situations in which the cause of a disease outbreak is unknown.”
Storch is senior author of a paper in the journal Genome Research. Study results show that ViroCap can detect viruses not found by standard testing based on genome sequencing.
The new test could be used to detect outbreaks of deadly viruses such as Ebola, Marburg, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), as well as more routine viruses, including rotavirus and norovirus, both of which cause severe gastrointestinal infections.
Sick children
Storch and colleagues evaluated the new test in two sets of biological samples—for example, from blood, stool and nasal secretions—from patients at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. In the first, standard testing that relied on genome sequencing had detected viruses in 10 of 14 patients. But the new test found viruses in the four children that earlier testing had missed.
Standard testing failed to detect common, everyday viruses: influenza B, a cause of seasonal flu; parechovirus, a mild gastrointestinal and respiratory virus; herpes virus 1, responsible for cold sores in the mouth; and varicella-zoster virus, which causes chickenpox.
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In a second group of children with unexplained fevers, standard testing had detected 11 viruses in the eight children evaluated. But the new test found another seven, including a respiratory virus called human adenovirus B type 3A, which usually is harmless but can cause severe infections in some patients.
In all, the number of viruses detected in the two patient groups jumped to 32 from 21, a 52 percent increase.
“The test is so sensitive that it also detects variant strains of viruses that are closely related genetically,” says Todd Wylie, an instructor of pediatrics and the paper’s corresponding author. “Slight genetic variations among viruses often can’t be distinguished by currently available tests and complicate physicians’ ability to detect all variants with one test.”
In addition, because the test includes detailed genetic information about various strains of particular viruses, subtypes can be identified easily. For example, the study showed that while standard testing identified a virus as influenza A, which causes seasonal flu, the new test indicated that the virus was a particularly harsh subtype called H3N2.
Last flu season, H3N2 contributed to some 36,000 deaths in the United States. And in some patients—particularly young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems—knowing that the H3N2 strain is present may alter treatment.
2 million stretches of DNA
To develop the test, the researchers targeted unique stretches of DNA or RNA from every known group of viruses that infects humans and animals. In all, the research team included 2 million unique stretches of genetic material from viruses in the test.
These stretches of material are used as probes to pluck out viruses in patient samples that are a genetic match. The matched viral material then is analyzed using high-throughput genetic sequencing. As completely novel viruses are discovered, their genetic material could easily be added to the test, Storch says.
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“It also may be possible to modify the test so that it could be used to detect pathogens other than viruses, including bacteria, fungi and other microbes, as well as genes that would indicate the pathogen is resistant to treatment with antibiotics or other drugs,” says Kristine Wylie, assistant professor of pediatrics and study coauthor.
In the meantime, the technology can be used by scientists to study viruses in a research setting. Kristine Wylie investigates the viruses that set up residence in and on the human body, collectively known as the virome. The new test will provide a way to capture the full breadth and depth of such viruses, and deepen understanding of how they play a role in keeping the body healthy.
The researchers are making the technology publicly available to scientists and clinicians worldwide. They plan to continue testing the accuracy of ViroCap and say it may be several years before it’s clinically available. The National Institutes of Health funded the work.
