Infectious Diseases

Biography

Biography: Sumedha Sharma

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: Tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis is a one of the major areas of interest to control the spread of TB disease in community. Therefore, there is a need to develop rapid and specific diagnostics easily usable at different health care levels. Our previous work on mycobacterial gene expression pattern in sputum from pulmonary tuberculosis patients lead to identification of newer targets, as potential biomarkers. In view of this, the current study was planned to evaluate the role of these candidate biomarkers in molecular and serodiagnostic tests. Methodology: Three of the genes, Rv0986 & Rv0971 along with one Region of Difference (RD) gene Rv3121, were evaluated for their diagnostic potential in RNA based real time (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Simultaneously, the peptides from proteins corresponding to these genes along with five other RD genes were evaluated for their serodiagnostic potential using a peptide based enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. Findings: The use of the target genes Rv0986, Rv0971 and Rv3121 in a molecular RNA based assay lead to the detection of smear positive patients with 100%, 87% and 94% sensitivity and of smear negative TB patients with 50%, 58% and 67% respectively. However, of all the peptides corresponding to different proteins which were tested in the serodiagnostic ELISA the maximum sensitivity that could be attained was 37% for smear positive PTB patients and 32% for smear negative PTB patients. Conclusion & Significance: A subset of the proteins encoded by the genes expressed by mycobacteria in the sputum have shown less sensitivity for the development of a serodiagnostic assay, but these genes have shown promising results for the development of a RNA based molecular assay that can be optimized further after evaluation in a larger cohort of patients.