Urine miRNA and Blood Full Transcriptome Expression and Clinical Data in Febrile Children with Bacterial or Viral Infections

The main goal of the study was to investigate the diagnostic potential of urine miRNA signatures to distinguish bacterial and viral infections in paediatric patients. Urine and blood samples were collected from paediatric patients from the Children’s Clinical University Hospital (Riga, Latvia) aged one month to 18 years with fever and confirmed bacterial or viral infections, as well as aged-matched controls with no signs of infection. Using small RNA sequencing data, we identified a miRNA profile capable of differentiating these infections with feature selection methods, including penalised logistic regression and ANOVA. Additionally, we integrated these findings with differential expression (DE) mRNA analysis to connect blood and urine transcriptomes, offering novel insights into disease mechanisms.