Affiliations 

  • 1 Laboratory Center, Xiamen University Malaysia, Sepang, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Pediatrics, Emory Vaccine Center, Atlanta, GA, United States
  • 3 Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory Vaccine Center, Atlanta, GA, United States
  • 5 School of Health Sciences, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS, Australia
  • 6 Division of Molecular Virology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linkoping University, Linkoping, Sweden
  • 7 Division of Infection Biology and Medical Microbiology, Department of Life Sciences, Central University of Tamil Nadu (CUTN), Thiruvarur, India
Front Microbiol, 2019;10:2789.
PMID: 31921004 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02789

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) treatment monitoring is paramount to clinical decision-making and the host biomarkers appears to play a significant role. The currently available diagnostic technology for TB detection is inadequate. Although GeneXpert detects total DNA present in the sample regardless live or dead bacilli present in clinical samples, all the commercial tests available thus far have low sensitivity. Humoral responses against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) antigens are generally low, which precludes the use of serological tests for TB diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment monitoring. Mtb-specific CD4+ T cells correlate with Mtb antigen/bacilli burden and hence might serve as good biomarkers for monitoring treatment progress. Omics-based techniques are capable of providing a more holistic picture for disease mechanisms and are more accurate in predicting TB disease outcomes. The current review aims to discuss some of the recent advances on TB biomarkers, particularly host biomarkers that have the potential to diagnose and differentiate active TB and LTBI as well as their use in disease prognosis and treatment monitoring.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.