| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) is a highly lethal infectious disease and early diagnosis of TB is critical for the control of disease progression. The objective of this study was to profile a panel of serum microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential biomarkers for the early diagnosis of pulmonary TB infection.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using TaqMan Low-Density Array (TLDA) analysis followed by quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) validation, expression levels of miRNAs in serum samples from 30 patients with active tuberculosis and 60 patients with <it>Bordetella pertussis</it> (BP), varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and enterovirus (EV) were analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The Low-Density Array data showed that 97 miRNAs were differentially expressed in pulmonary TB patient sera compared with healthy controls (90 up-regulated and 7 down-regulated). Following qRT-PCR confirmation and receiver operational curve (ROC) analysis, three miRNAs (miR-361-5p, miR-889 and miR-576-3p) were shown to distinguish TB infected patients from healthy controls and other microbial infections with moderate sensitivity and specificity (area under curve (AUC) value range, 0.711-0.848). Multiple logistic regression analysis of a combination of these three miRNAs showed an enhanced ability to discriminate between these two groups with an AUC value of 0.863.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study suggests that altered levels of serum miRNAs have great potential to serve as non-invasive biomarkers for early detection of pulmonary TB infection.</p>
|
|---|
