Salivary miRNA profiles in treatment naïve active pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Uganda

Abstract

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is the biggest cause of death from a single infection worldwide. This can be attributed to the present diagnostic tests' sensitivity and specificity limits. MicroRNAs (miRNA) have been shown in studies to be better diagnostic indicators due to their stability and capacity to withstand pH and temperature extremes. salivary miRNA expression profiles of miRNAs (hsa-miR-424, hsa-miR-30b, miR-29a, hsa-155,) in TB patients and healthy people, was investigated. This research aimed to identify if there is a significant difference in salivary concentrations of the candidate miRNAs between TB and non-diseases patients and the expression patterns in cell bound versus circulating miRNAs. Methodology: 25 participants; 13 treatment naïve TB patients at Mulago National Referral Hospital, the 12 healthy participants, salivary miRNA from circulating and cell bound miRNA was isolated using the miRNeasy Serum/Plasma Advanced Kit and reverse transcribed by the Taqman Advanced miRNA cDNA Synthesis Kit which uses universal primers and a reverse transcriptase to create cDNA templates for qrtPCR. The expression profiles of hsa-miR-424, hsa-miR-30b, miR-29a, hsa-155, determined using the TaqMan® Advanced miRNA Assay. Results: Based on the qualitative and quantitative findings of the statistical analysis of the data obtained from the qrtPCR, it was concluded that there is no significant difference in the of salivary miRNA expression profiles of hsa-miR-424-5p and hsa-miR-29a for the, hsa-miR-30b, hsa-miR-155 the data obtained was insignificant to draw any statistical analysis, the expression patterns between cell bound and circulating miRNA have relatively not different.