{"doi":"10.1101/2020.12.04.20230755","title":"Reproducible breath metabolite changes in children with SARS-CoV-2 infection","abstract":"SARS-CoV-2 infection is diagnosed through detection of specific viral nucleic acid or antigens from respiratory samples. These techniques are relatively expensive, slow, and susceptible to false-negative results. A rapid non-invasive method to detect infection would be highly advantageous. Compelling evidence from canine biosensors and studies of adults with COVID-19 suggests that infection reproducibly alters human volatile organic compounds (VOCs) profiles. To determine whether pediatric infection is associated with VOC changes, we enrolled SARS-CoV-2-infected and -uninfected children admitted to a major pediatric academic medical center. Breath samples were collected from children and analyzed through state-of-the-art GCxGC-ToFMS. Isolated features included 84 targeted VOCs. Candidate biomarkers that were correlated with infection status were subsequently validated in a second, independent cohort of children. We thus find that six volatile organic compounds are significantly and reproducibly increased in the breath of SARS-CoV-2-infected children. Three aldehydes (octanal, nonanal, and heptanal) drew special attention, as aldehydes are also elevated in the breath of adults with COVID-19. Together, these biomarkers demonstrate high accuracy for distinguishing pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infection and support the ongoing development of novel breath-based diagnostics.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2020,"id":120582,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9522,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":559659,"name":"Elikplim H. Akaho","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":537697,"name":"Rebecca M. Harris","orcid":"0000-0002-1944-3747","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":420328,"name":"Morgan Congdon","orcid":"0000-0002-8528-0480","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":559660,"name":"Emilie Korn","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":559661,"name":"Samuel Neher","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":559662,"name":"Mirna M’Farrej","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336116,"name":"Julianne E. Burns","orcid":"0000-0003-4154-2802","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":28530,"name":"Audrey R. Odom John","orcid":"0000-0001-8395-8537","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":558536,"name":"Amalia Z. Berna","orcid":"0000-0003-4932-5415","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":30,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:38.147936Z","pmid":"33330891","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}