Study delivers proof of concept for predictive tests for TB progression

Discovery and validation of a prognostic proteomic signature for tuberculosis progression: A prospective cohort study

Study delivers proof of concept for predictive tests for TB progression

SATVI authors Dr Adam Penn-Nicholson, Professor Tom Scriba, Drs. Stanley Kimbung Mbandi, Michelle Fisher and Professor Mark Hatherill have co-authored a paper titled "Discovery and validation of a prognostic proteomic signature for tuberculosis progression: A prospective cohort study" appearing in the Plos Medicine journal. 

Background

Control of the global TB epidemic would benefit immensely from an affordable, simple and accurate predictive test that can identify people at high risk of TB to allow targeted antibiotic treatment before they become sick and infectious. In this study, published in the medical journal, PLoS Medicine, a large collaborative team of researchers developed two such biomarker tests that can ascertain the risk of TB based on the abundance of 3-5 proteins in blood. 

Study

They analysed plasma from healthy, South African adolescents with latent infection with the TB bacterium, who were carefully followed over two years. By comparing abundance of over 3,000 different plasma proteins from adolescents who progressed to TB disease with adolescents who remained healthy, they identified proteins that are either much more or less abundant in progressors than in those who remain healthy. This enabled them to construct computational methods that utilise this information to ascertain the risk of disease progression. The predictive ability of the two protein biomarkers were then validated by demonstrating that TB progressors could be discerned from non-progressors in an independent cohort of adults from The Gambia.

Although this is the first time that predictive biomarkers based on plasma proteins have been developed and validated, the team has previously developed biomarkers that can predict TB progression by measuring RNA expression levels in blood. What makes this new discovery so exciting is that the technology required to turn protein-based biomarker tests into simple and low-cost commercial tests, such as the well-known pregnancy tests, is more advanced. This work therefore provides important proof of concept that predictive tests for TB progression can soon become a reality.

View the journal - Discovery and validation of a prognostic proteomic signature for tuberculosis progression: A prospective cohort study - Plos Medicine