Detection of volatile organic compounds in cattle naturally infected with Mycobacterium bovis

Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, Volumes 171–172, August–September 2012, Pages 588-594
Nir Peled, Radu Ionescu, Pauline Nol, Orna Barash, Matt McCollum, Kurt VerCauteren, Matthew Koslow, Randal Stahl, Jack Rhyan, Hossam Haick

The Thoracic Cancer Research and Detection Center, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 52621, Israel

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel

The National Wildlife Research Center, US Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Fort Collins, CO 80521, USA

Abstract

We report here on a novel methodology in detecting Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) infection in cattle, based on identifying unique volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or a VOC profile in the breath of cattle. The study was conducted on an M. bovis-infected dairy located in southern Colorado, USA, and on two tuberculosis-free dairies from northern Colorado examined as negative controls. Gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry analysis revealed the presence of 2 VOCs associated with M. bovis infection and 2 other VOCs associated with the healthy state in the exhaled breath of M. bovis-infected and not infected animals, yielding distinctly different VOC patterns for the two study groups. Based on these results, a nanotechnology-based array of sensors was then tailored for detection of M. bovis-infected cattle via breath. Our system successfully identified all M. bovis-infected animals, while 21% of the not infected animals were classified as M. bovis-infected. This technique could form the basis for a real-time cattle monitoring system that allows efficient and non-invasive screening for new M. bovis infections on dairy farms.

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