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The dual role of biomarkers for understanding basic principles and devising novel intervention strategies in tuberculosis
Author(s) -
Weiner January,
Maertzdorf Jeroen,
Kaufmann Stefan H.E.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06802.x
Subject(s) - tuberculosis , disease , profiling (computer programming) , medicine , computational biology , intensive care medicine , computer science , risk analysis (engineering) , bioinformatics , biology , pathology , operating system
There is great need for better control measures for tuberculosis (TB). High‐throughput analyses, such as transcriptomic and metabolic profiling, offer a promising path toward clinically useful biosignatures. With the help of biomarkers, it will be possible not only to reliably perform diagnosis but also to gain a better understanding of the disease process and, in the future, even predict the onset of disease in infected individuals. Biomarkers based on transcriptomic and metabolic profiles as well as on cytokine composition provide important insights into the basic biological principles of TB and give an opportunity to reliably distinguish TB patients from healthy individuals. Use of biomarkers for point‐of‐care diagnosis, however, is still a distant goal, which to achieve will require extensive analysis of TB biosignatures across different cohorts and a combination of different platforms.