How to distinguish between viral, bacterial infections: New Tool developed @University of Rochester Medical Center

Feeds:: Posts; Comments

« Appellate Brief Seeking Reversal of U.S. Patent Board Decision on CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Editing

Agios Pharmaceuticals target the metabolism of cancer cells for making drugs that essentially try to repair cancer cells »

How to distinguish between viral, bacterial infections: New Tool developed @University of Rochester Medical Center

August 2, 2017 by 2012pharmaceutical

Curator: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Transcriptomic Biomarkers to Discriminate Bacterial from Nonbacterial Infection in Adults Hospitalized with Respiratory Illness

Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 6548(2017)
doi:10.1038/s41598-017-06738-3
Download Citation
- Molecular biology
- Molecular medicine

Published online: 26 July 2017

URMC Researchers Developing New Tool to Fight Antibiotic Resistance

Goal is to Distinguish Between Viral and Bacterial Infections, Reduce Unnecessary Use of Antibiotics

Friday, July 28, 2017

“It’s extremely difficult to interpret what’s causing a respiratory tract infection, especially in very ill patients who come to the hospital with a high fever, cough, shortness of breath and other concerning symptoms,” said Ann R. Falsey, M.D., lead study author, professor and interim chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial Hospital.

“My goal is to develop a tool that physicians can use to rule out a bacterial infection with enough certainty that they are comfortable, and their patients are comfortable, foregoing an antibiotic.”

Ann R. Falsey, M.D.

Falsey’s project caught the attention of the federal government; she’s one of 10 semifinalists in the Antimicrobial Resistance Diagnostic Challenge, a competition sponsored by NIH and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to help combat the development and spread of drug resistant bacteria. Selected from among 74 submissions, Falsey received $50,000 to continue her research and develop a prototype diagnostic test, such as a blood test, using the genetic markers her team identified.

SOURCE

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/5108/urmc-researchers-developing-new-tool-to-fight-antibiotic-resistance.aspx

Lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI)

We enrolled 94 subjects who were microbiologically classified; 53 as “non-bacterial” and 41 as “bacterial”. RNAseq and qPCR confirmed significant differences in mean expression for 10 genes previously identified as discriminatory for bacterial LRTI. A novel dimension reduction strategy selected three pathways (lymphocyte, α-linoleic acid metabolism, IGF regulation) including eleven genes as optimal markers for discriminating bacterial infection (naïve AUC = 0.94; nested CV-AUC = 0.86). Using these genes, we constructed a classifier for bacterial LRTI with 90% (79% CV) sensitivity and 83% (76% CV) specificity. This novel, pathway-based gene set displays promise as a method to distinguish bacterial from nonbacterial LRTI.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06738-3#Sec8