Project description:Background: dengue is a potentially life-threatening viral infection. Early prognostic markers of severe complications may improve case management and reduce dengue-related mortalities. This study aimed to identify circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) as biomarkers for predicting severe dengue. Methods: Serum samples from dengue-infected patients were collected on the first day of admission. Patients were followed up for 14 days after admission to determine the final diagnosis. Participants were divided into non-severe and severe dengue, as defined by WHO 2009 criteria. Circulating microtranscriptome analysis was performed using the NanoString miRNA Expression Assay. The expression level of candidate miRNAs were then validated by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) method. Findings: The discovery cohort (N=19) lead to the identification of 37 differentially expressed miRNAs between the two groups. Six miRNAs (miR122-5p, miR1246, miR1303, miR574-5p, miR30d-5p, and miR424-5p) were selected and further validated in the larger cohort (N=135). The qRT-PCR analysis confirmed that the six miRNAs expression levels were significantly higher in the severe dengue group compared to the non-severe group. Based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, miR574-5p and miR1246 displayed the highest diagnostic performance in discriminating between severe from non-severe dengue (AROC curve =0·83). Additionally, miR574-5p and miR1246 had high sensitivity and high negative predictive value for detecting severe dengue. Multivariate analysis suggested that serum miR574-5p was an independent predictor of severe dengue (odds ratio 3·30, 95% CI 1·81-6·04; p<0·001). Interpretation: Circulating miRNAs, especially miR-574-5p and miR-1246, could be promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for severe dengue.
Project description:DNA microarrays and specific RT-PCR assays were used to reveal transcriptional patterns in the blood of children presenting with dengue shock syndrome (DSS) and well-matched patients with uncomplicated dengue. The transcriptome of patients with acute uncomplicated dengue was characterized by a metabolically demanding "host defense" profile; transcripts related to oxidative metabolism, interferon signaling, protein ubiquination, apoptosis and cytokines were prominent. In contrast, the transcriptome of DSS patients was surprisingly benign, particularly with regard to transcripts derived from apoptotic and type I interferon pathways. These data highlight significant heterogeneity in the type or timing of host transcriptional immune responses precipitated by DENV infection independent of the duration of illness. In particular, they suggest that if transcriptional events in the blood compartment contribute to capillary leakage leading to hypovolemic shock, they occur before cardiovascular decompensation occurs, a finding that has implications for rational adjuvant therapy in this syndrome. Whole blood transcriptional profiles of children infected with dengue virus with different clinical outcomes were compared. The subjects including 9 acute dengue shock samples, 9 acute uncomplicated dengue samples, 6 autologous follow up dengue samples and 6 autologous follow up uncomplicated dengue patients. Microarray data was normalised using Genespring GX7 software, statistical analysis was performed in Multiexperiment viewer software. Pathway analysis was performed using Ingenuity Pathway analysis online software.
Project description:In this study, 10x Chromium technology was applied to quantify transcripts from single-cell nuclei of adult male and female brain of Aedes aegypti, a medically important mosquito vector that transmits yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses to humans.
Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has overwhelmed health systems worldwide and highlighted limitations of diagnostic testing. Several types of diagnostic tests including RT-PCR-based assays and antigen detection by lateral flow assays, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, have been developed and deployed in a short time. Here, we describe an immunoaffinity purification approach followed a by high resolution mass spectrometry-based targeted qualitative assay capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2 viral antigen from nasopharyngeal swab samples. Based on our discovery experiments using purified virus, recombinant viral protein and nasopharyngeal swab samples from COVID-19 positive patients, nucleocapsid protein was selected as a target antigen. We then developed an automated antibody capture-based workflow coupled to targeted high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) - parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) assay on an Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer. An ensemble machine learning-based model for determining COVID-19 positive samples was developed using fragment ion intensities from the PRM data. The optimized targeted assay, which was used to analyze 88 positive and 88 negative nasopharyngeal swab samples for validation, resulted in 98% (95% CI = 0.922-0.997) (86/88) sensitivity and 100% (95% CI = 0.958-1.000) (88/88) specificity using RT-PCR-based molecular testing as the reference method. Our results demonstrate that direct detection of infectious agents from clinical samples by tandem mass spectrometry-based assays have potential to be deployed as diagnostic assays in clinical laboratories, which has hitherto been limited to analysis of pure microbial culture
Project description:The aim of the present study was to identify a pediatric inflamatory bowel disease (pIBD) characteristic microRNA profile serving as potential Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis specific diagnostic pattern and to further analyze the related target genes. Illumina small RNA sequencing was performed on inflamed and intact colonic biopsies of Crohn's disease and control patients. Selected miRs were further investigated by real-time reverse transcription (RT)-PCR. To analyze network connection of differentially expressed miRs and their target genes the MiRTarBase database and previous transcriptome sequencing data were used. We demonstrated a characteristic colonic miR pattern in pIBD that could facilitate deeper understanding of the pathomechanism of IBD and may serve as a diagnostic tool in the future.
Project description:To date, a universal biomarker panel with a potential to predict high-risk pregnancies or adverse pregnancy outcome does not exist. Transcriptomic approach, a measure of gene expression levels across the genome, is a powerful tool to capture differentially expressed genes (DEG) in various conditions, including human trisomy of chromosome 21 (Ts21). DEG can be used to design a biomarker set as a diagnostic-predictive tool for various conditions of heterogeneous aetiology in a prenatal setting. In the search of novel biomarker set to predict high-risk pregnancies, we performed global expression profiling to find DEG in Ts21 used as a model. Subsequently we performed targeted validation and diagnostic performance evaluation on a larger group of case and control samples. Initially, transcriptomic profiles of 10 cultivated amniocyte samples with Ts21 and 9 with normal euploid constitution were determined using Agilent 4x44K expression microarrays. DEG were discovered using linear regression modelling implemented in limma package. Datasets from Ts21 transcriptomic studies available at GEO repository were incorporated to select our preliminary top DEG. Subsequently, selected top DEG were validated using RT-PCR quantification on independent sample of 16 cases with Ts21 and 32 controls, as well as new datasets from previously performed expression studies in Ts21. The classification was performed using support vector machine classification kernel and evaluated using leave-one-out cross validation approach.