COVID-19 salivary Raman fingerprint: innovative approach for the detection of current and past SARS-CoV-2 infections

Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 2;11(1):4943. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-84565-3.

Abstract

The pandemic of COVID-19 is continuously spreading, becoming a worldwide emergency. Early and fast identification of subjects with a current or past infection must be achieved to slow down the epidemiological widening. Here we report a Raman-based approach for the analysis of saliva, able to significantly discriminate the signal of patients with a current infection by COVID-19 from healthy subjects and/or subjects with a past infection. Our results demonstrated the differences in saliva biochemical composition of the three experimental groups, with modifications grouped in specific attributable spectral regions. The Raman-based classification model was able to discriminate the signal collected from COVID-19 patients with accuracy, precision, sensitivity and specificity of more than 95%. In order to translate this discrimination from the signal-level to the patient-level, we developed a Deep Learning model obtaining accuracy in the range 89-92%. These findings have implications for the creation of a potential Raman-based diagnostic tool, using saliva as minimal invasive and highly informative biofluid, demonstrating the efficacy of the classification model.

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Antibodies, Viral / analysis
  • COVID-19 / diagnosis*
  • Comorbidity
  • Computational Biology
  • Deep Learning
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Normal Distribution
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Saliva / chemistry*
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Spectrum Analysis, Raman / methods*

Substances

  • Antibodies, Viral