Biomedical Research

Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most extensively spread diseases in developing countries. A recent survey found that the incidence of tuberculosis showed a clear upward trend. Therefore, in order to better control tuberculosis infection, finding fast and accurate method for the early diagnosis is very important. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a simple, rapid, sensitive and unique genetic diagnosis technology, but there are still some major problems in its applification for the early diagnosis of TB. With the development of modern computational biology, it has become easier to screen for new TB diagnostic targets.

Materials and Methods: We first screened the genes which are only present in M. tuberculosis by blast technology. We used the keywords “Rv1512” “Rv1513” “Rv1516” “Rv1973” ”Rv1974” ”Rv2646” “Rv2655” “Rv2659” “Rv3119” “Rv3120” “Rv3617” “Rv3738c”to search the publications from 2000 to 2016 in PubMed. Using Epidata3.1, we deleted the repeated and unrelated studies by parallel entry and logical error test. In the end, the specificity of using the genes for the diagnostic screening of clinical tuberculosis specimens was validated by PCR method.

Results: Using clinical tuberculosis specimens, the specificity of the obtained genes were validated by PCR method, and the genes were compared with those of tuberculosis, asthma, pneumonia, and lung cancer with similar early symptoms to those of tuberculosis. It was finally verified that the 3 genes obtained by screening can be used as the biomarkers for the early diagnosis of tuberculosis.

Conclusion: In conclusion we find that these genes can be used as targets for the early diagnosis of tuberculosis.

Author(s): Guangxin Yuan, Guangyu Xu
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