Blood transcriptome of human sepsis in an Indian cohort [Affymetrix array]

Sepsis remains a lethal ailment with imprecise treatment and ill-understood biology. A clinical transcriptomic analysis of sepsis patients was performed for the first time in India and revealed large-scale change in blood gene expression in patients of severe sepsis and septic shock admitted to ICU. Three biological processes were quantified using scores derived from the corresponding transcriptional modules. Comparison of the module scores revealed that genes associated with immune response were more suppressed compared to the inflammation-associated genes. These findings will have great implication in the treatment and prognosis of severe sepsis/septic shock if it can be translated into a bedside tool. Transcriptomic profiling was performed on sepsis cases and on matched (by age and gender) healthy controls, who were not suffering from any inflammatory diseases, and were not related to the patients. Samples were collected at two different time points in the cases. Two blood samples from the sepsis cases were collected, the first at the time of diagnosis (D1), and a second sample after 24 hours (D2) . Representative single blood sample was collected from each of the healthy control individuals. A total of 27 patients (23 with paired transcriptome data for two time points) and 12 healthy control subjects (for the single time point) were recruited in this study.