A novel whole-blood miRNA signature for a rapid diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis

One essential aspect for controlling the spread of tuberculosis (TB) is to diagnose it in an early stage. However, the commonly used test systems are still insufficient. Moreover, current assays perform poorly in discriminating between active TB and latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). Due to limited knowledge of promising TB biomarkers, global “omics” approaches bear attractive options to follow [1]. MiRNAs are important post-transcriptional regulators shown to be involved in the modulation of immune responses against intracellular pathogens [2]. These findings open the possibility of using miRNAs as TB biomarkers for diagnosis. In the present study, we have investigated their role as blood biomarkers for detecting active TB. A novel, whole-blood miRNA signature enables to rapidly diagnose TB with 91.21% sensitivity and 87.95% specificity Andreas Meyerhans and Irene Latorre were supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (SAF2010–21336) and ERS/SEPAR-fellowship (LTRF 82-2012), respectively. Jose Domínguez is a researcher from the Miguel Servet programme. Irene Latorre, Jose Domínguez, Maria Luiza de Souza-Galvão, Juan Ruiz-Manzano, Jose Maldonado, Cristina Prat and Andreas Meyerhans are TB-NET members.