Serum microRNAs as biomarker for active and latent tuberculosis infection in immunocompetent and immunodeficient hosts

Background: Expression patterns of microRNAs in body fluids show
potential to be used as noninvasive rapid and accurate biomarkers
for various diseases.The study aimed to (i) identify patterns of
microRNA signatures for diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and (ii)
assess significance of a patient’s genetic background on signature
composition and diagnostic performance. Patients and Methods: The
study enrolled consented participants from Europe and Africa.
Circulating miRNAs were measured and compared between patients
belonging to the following categories; (i) active pulmonary
tuberculosis (PTB), (ii) healthy individuals (H), (iii) active
pulmonary TB co-infected with HIV (PTB/HIV), (iv) latent TB
infection (LTBI) and (v) other pulmonary infection (OPI). As a
first step, pooled sera of 10 participants from each category and
region of enrolment were measured by TaqMan low-density arrays.
Secondly, the identified significant miRNA signatures were applied
to 56 individual sera aiming to discriminate between H and PTB
patients. Next, the identified miRNA signatures were analysed for
their diagnostic performances using multivariate logistic analysis,
and Relevance Vector Machine (RVM). The diagnostic performance of
both models was evaluated by a leave-one-out-cross-validation
(LOOCV).