Mass Spectrometry Techniques in Emerging Pathogens Studies: COVID-19 Perspectives

As corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a rapidly growing public health crisis across the world, our knowledge of meaningful diagnostic tests and treatment for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) is still evolving. This novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 can be diagnosed using RT-PCR, but inadequate access to reagents, equipment, and a nonspecific target has slowed disease detection and management. Precision medicine, individualized patient care, requires suitable diagnostics approaches to tackle the challenging aspects of viral outbreaks where many tests are needed in a rapid and deployable approach. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based technologies such as proteomics, glycomics, lipidomics, and metabolomics have been applied in disease outbreaks for identification of infectious disease agents such as virus and bacteria and the molecular phenomena associated with pathogenesis. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS) is widely used in clinical diagnostics in the United States and Europe for bacterial pathogen identification. Paper spray ionization mass spectrometry (PSI-MS), a rapid ambient MS technique, has recently open a new opportunity for future clinical investigation to diagnose pathogens. Ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography coupled high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC–HRMS)-based metabolomics and lipidomics have been employed in large-scale biomedical research to discriminate infectious pathogens and uncover biomarkers associated with pathogenesis. PCR-MS has emerged as a new technology with the capability to directly identify known pathogens from the clinical specimens and the potential to identify genetic evidence of undiscovered pathogens. Moreover, miniaturized MS offers possible applications with relatively fast, highly sensitive, and potentially portable ways to analyze for viral compounds. However, beneficial aspects of these rapidly growing MS technologies in pandemics like COVID-19 outbreaks has been limited. Hence, this perspective gives a brief of the existing knowledge, current challenges, and opportunities for MS-based techniques as a promising avenue in studying emerging pathogen outbreaks such as COVID-19.