PR001562 (Project)

Description:Tuberculosis (TB) is a transmissible disease listed as one of the 10 leading causes of death worldwide (10 million infected in 2019). A swift and precise diagnosis is essential to forestall its transmission, for which is crucial the discovery of effective diagnostic biomarkers. In this study, we aimed to discover molecular biomarkers for the early diagnosis of tuberculosis. Two independent cohorts comprising 29 and 34 subjects were assayed by proteomics, and 49 were included for metabolomic analysis. All subjects were arranged into 3 experimental groups – healthy controls (Controls), Latent TB infection (LTBI) and TB patients. LC-MS/MS blood serum protein and metabolite levels were submitted to univariate, multivariate and ROC analysis. From the 149 proteins quantified in the discovery set, 25 were found to be differentially abundant between Controls and TB patients. The AUC, specificity and sensitivity, determined by ROC statistical analysis of the model composed by four of these proteins considering both proteomic sets, were 0.96; 93% and 91%, respectively. The five metabolites (9-methyluric acid, indole-3-lactic acid, trans-3-indoleacrylic acid, hexanoylglycine and N-acetyl-L-leucine) that better discriminate the control and TB patient groups (VIP > 1.75) from a total of 92 metabolites quantified in both ionization modes, were submitted to ROC analysis. An AUC=1 was determined with all samples being correctly assigned to the respective experimental group. An integrated ROC analysis enrolling 1 protein and 4 metabolites was also performed for the common control and TB patients in the proteomic and metabolomic groups. This combined signature has correctly assigned the 12 controls and 12 patients used only for prediction (AUC=1, specificity=100% and sensitivity=100%). This multi-omics approach has revealed a biomarker signature for tuberculosis diagnosis that could be potentially used for developing a point-of-care diagnosis clinical test.