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Host-Derived Molecules as Novel Chagas Disease Biomarkers: Hypercoagulability Markers in Plasma

Julio Alonso-Padilla1, Dolors Tassies2, Nuria Cortes-Serra1

  • 1Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Hospital Clínic - Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton, N.J.)
|March 15, 2019
PubMed

Insights

Diagnosing chronic Chagas disease (Chagas disease) is challenging. New methods measuring host molecules, like thrombin generation, may track treatment effectiveness for Trypanosoma cruzi infections.

Area of Science:

  • * Parasitology and Tropical Medicine
  • * Cardiovascular and Gastrointestinal Pathology
  • * Biochemistry and Molecular Diagnostics

Background:

  • * Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, affects ~30% of chronically infected individuals, leading to severe cardiac and gastrointestinal complications.
  • * Current diagnostic methods often identify the infection late, after clinical symptoms manifest, hindering timely intervention.
  • * Existing treatments for Chagas disease lack effective diagnostics to monitor therapeutic response, delaying assessment of efficacy.

Purpose of the Study:

  • * To introduce novel diagnostic procedures for assessing therapeutic response in chronic Chagas disease.
  • * To measure host-derived molecules as surrogates for evaluating treatment efficacy against Trypanosoma cruzi infection.
  • * To investigate the role of thrombin generation as a biomarker for treatment response.

Main Methods:

  • * Development and validation of two procedures to quantify host-derived molecules.
  • * Focus on measuring thrombin generation, a key indicator of the blood coagulation cascade.
  • * Assessment of thrombin generation in relation to hypercoagulability in Chagas disease patients.

Main Results:

  • * The proposed procedures measure host-derived molecules linked to thrombin generation and coagulation.
  • * A hypercoagulable state is characteristic of chronic Chagas disease.
  • * This hypercoagulability state is observed to revert following treatment with benznidazole.

Conclusions:

  • * Measuring thrombin generation offers a viable surrogate for assessing therapeutic response in chronic Chagas disease.
  • * These host-derived biomarkers can facilitate timely evaluation of treatment efficacy.
  • * The findings support the use of coagulation markers for monitoring Chagas disease treatment outcomes.

Keywords:
Chagas diseaseDiagnosisHost-derived biological markersHypercoagulability biomarkersPrognosisTherapeutic response

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