CeRNA network identified hsa-miR-17-5p, hsa-miR-106a-5p and hsa-miR-2355-5p as potential diagnostic biomarkers for tuberculosis.

This study aims to analyze the regulatory non-coding RNAs in the pathological process of tuberculosis (TB), and identify novel diagnostic biomarkers. A longitudinal study was conducted in 5 newly diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis patients, peripheral blood samples were collected before and after anti-TB treatment for 6 months, separately. After whole transcriptome sequencing, the differentially expressed RNAs (DE RNAs) were filtrated with |log2 (fold change) | > log2(1.5) and P value < .05 as screening criteria. Then functional annotation was actualized by gene ontology enrichment analysis, and enrichment pathway analysis was conducted by Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database. And finally, the competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) regulatory network was established according to the interaction of ceRNA pairs and miRNA-mRNA pairs. Five young women were recruited and completed this study. Based on the differential expression analysis, a total of 1469 mRNAs, 996 long non-coding RNAs, 468 circular RNAs, and 86 miRNAs were filtrated as DE RNAs. Functional annotation demonstrated that those DE-mRNAs were strongly involved in the cellular process (n = 624), metabolic process (n = 513), single-organism process (n = 505), cell (n = 651), cell part (n = 650), organelle (n = 569), and binding (n = 629). Enrichment pathway analysis revealed that the differentially expressed genes were mainly enriched in HTLV-l infection, T cell receptor signaling pathway, glycosaminoglycan biosynthesis-heparan sulfate/heparin, and Hippo signaling pathway. CeRNA networks revealed that hsa-miR-17-5p, hsa-miR-106a-5p and hsa-miR-2355-5p might be regarded as potential diagnostic biomarkers for TB. Immunomodulation-related genes are differentially expressed in TB patients, and hsa-miR-106a-5p, hsa-miR-17-5p, hsa-miR-2355-5p might serve as potential diagnostic biomarkers.

[Evaluation of five D-dimer assays for the exclusion of venous thromboembolism].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of five D-dimer assays for the exclusion of suspected venous thromboembolis (VTE). METHODS: The plasma D-dimer levels of 75 suspected VTE patients were tested with ELISA, VIDAS DD, DD Plus, Liatest STAGO DD, and NycoCard DD. The results of the five assays were compared with the gold standard of diagnosis of VTE. RESULTS: Liatest STAGO DD, DD Plus, VIDAS DD and ELISA had good diagnostic performance for the exclusion of suspected VTE. Liatest STAGO DD had the greatest accuracy for differentiating diagnosis, with 0.814 of area under the curve (AUC), 96.7% of sensitivity, and 95.5% of negative predictive value. ELISA had the greatest specificity (48.9%). The five assays showed good correlations, with VIDAS DD and Liatest STAGO DD having the greatest correlation coefficient (r = 0.9106). VIDAS DD and Liatest STAGO DD correlated well with ELISA (r = 0.8764 and r = 0.8360 respectively). CONCLUSION: Liatest STAGO DD, DD Plus, and VIDAS DD have good diagnostic performance for the exclusion of VTE. They are easier and quicker to perform and can serve as an alternative test for ELISA. Further validation is needed for clinical applications.