Application of rapid Nanopore metagenomic cell-free DNA sequencing to diagnose bloodstream infections: a prospective observational study

Bloodstream infections are a major cause of mortality, often leading to sepsis or septic shock. Rapid initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy is essential for survival; however, the current gold standard for identifying pathogens in bloodstream infections, blood culturing, has limitations with long turnaround time and poor sensitivity. This delay in refining empirical broad-spectrum antimicrobial treatments contributes to increased mortality and the development of antimicrobial resistance. In this study, we developed a metagenomic next-generation sequencing assay utilizing the Oxford Nanopore Technologies platform to sequence microbial cell-free DNA from blood plasma. We demonstrated proof of concept in a prospective observational clinical study including patients (n = 40) admitted to the emergency ward on suspicion of bloodstream infection. Study samples were drawn from the same venipuncture as a blood culture sample from the included patients. Nanopore metagenomic sequencing confirmed all microbiological findings in patients with positive blood cultures (n = 11) and identified pathogens relevant to the acute infection in an additional 11 patients with negative blood cultures. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that culture-independent Nanopore metagenomic sequencing directly on blood plasma could be a feasible supplementary test for infection diagnostics in patients admitted with severe infections or sepsis. These findings support further studies on Nanopore metagenomic sequencing for sepsis diagnostics in larger cohorts to validate and expand the results from this study.