Blood transcriptome of human sepsis in an Indian cohort [Illumina 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 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.

脓毒症仍是一种致死性疾病，其治疗方案尚不精准，发病机制亦尚未完全阐明。本研究首次在印度针对脓毒症患者开展临床转录组分析（transcriptomic profiling），结果显示，收入重症监护病房（ICU）的重度脓毒症及感染性休克患者的血液基因表达发生了大范围改变。研究人员通过对应转录模块衍生的评分，对三种生物学过程进行了量化分析。对模块评分的对比结果显示，与炎症相关基因相比，免疫应答相关基因的表达抑制程度更为显著。若将该研究成果转化为床旁检测工具，将对重度脓毒症/感染性休克的治疗与预后评估具有重要价值。本研究对脓毒症病例以及按年龄、性别匹配的健康对照者开展了转录组分析：健康对照者无任何炎症性疾病，且与患者无亲缘关系。脓毒症病例的样本采集于两个不同时间点：患者于确诊时采集第一份血液样本（记为D1），并于24小时后采集第二份样本（记为D2）；每名健康对照者仅采集单份代表性血液样本。本研究共招募27名患者（其中23名拥有两个时间点的配对转录组数据）及12名健康对照者（仅采集单个时间点样本）。