Identification of an eight-protein biosignature for the diagnosis of tuberculosis II

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) antigen-specific cellular response is promising for detectionof Mtb infection, but not efficient for diagnosis of TB. We firstly identified 16 TB disease-specific protein markers measured in the culture supernatant of Mtb-stimulated whole blood using a 640 human proteins array, the highest throughput antibody-based protein array available at the time when we did this study. Potential TB-related proteins were then analyzed across three different patient cohorts comprised of healthy controls, LTBI, non-TB pneumonia, and TB patients to evaluate how the biomarkers performed in diagnosing TB in the real clinical setting. The data finally reveal an eight-protein biosignature of TB. We identified 16 candidate biomarkers of tuberculosis in whole blood and developed into a custom multiplexed antibody array for biomarker validation. Tow cohorts of individuals were enrolled into for our study, including 419 individuals to establish and test the predictive model, and 102 individuals for biomarker validation.