Identification of Candidate mRNA and miRNA Molecules Associated with Tuberculosis Through Preliminary Analysis and...

Area of Science:

• Genomics and Molecular Biology
• Infectious Diseases
• Biomarker Discovery

Background:

• Tuberculosis (TB) poses a significant global health challenge.
• Identifying molecular markers for TB is crucial for diagnosis and understanding disease mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify differentially expressed messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) associated with active pulmonary TB.
• To validate the potential roles of these molecules as TB biomarkers.

Main Methods:

• RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) for mRNA and plasma for miRNA from 10 TB patients and 10 healthy controls.
• Functional annotation and pathway enrichment analysis (DAVID, KEGG) were used to analyze differentially expressed genes.
• Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was employed for validation.

Main Results:

• A total of 1323 differentially expressed mRNAs and 49 differentially expressed miRNAs were identified.
• Two TB-associated pathways, 'MicroRNAs in cancer' and 'Small cell lung cancer,' were revealed.
• Tumor protein p53 (TP53), forkhead box protein P1 (FOXP1), and hsa-miR-29b-3p were identified as key regulatory factors and validated by RT-qPCR.

Conclusions:

• Three potential candidate molecules (TP53, FOXP1, hsa-miR-29b-3p) associated with TB were identified.
• These molecules showed consistent expression patterns between RNA-Seq and RT-qPCR.
• Further studies are needed to determine the disease specificity of these candidate TB biomarkers.