MicroRNA hsa-miR-29a-3p is a plasma biomarker for the differential diagnosis and monitoring of tuberculosis

The diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) continues to pose substantial public health problems. The quest for diagnostic biomarkers for TB is therefore primordial. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic and anti-TB treatment monitoring potentials of some selected miRNAs. Quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction and Receiver operating characteristics were used to estimate the ability of miRNAs to discriminate between healthy controls (HEC), latent (LTB) and active TB (ATB). The study showed that: hsa-miR-29a-3p, hsa-miR-155-5p and hsa-miR-361-5p were significantly upregulated in ATB compared to HEC while hsa-miR-29a-3p, and hsa-miR-361-5p were also significantly up-regulated in ATB compared to LTB (all P 64 0.05). MiR-29a-3p showed a good (81.37%) distinguishing performance in discriminating ATB from HEC and a good (84.35%) diagnostic performance in discriminating ATB from LTB. The performance of miR-29a-3p present in the blood in discriminating active TB from latent TB and healthy controls indicates it may be a useful biomarker for diagnosis of TB. Because this miRNA is found in blood (plasma) which is easy to collect compared to sputum it could be used in pediatric and extra-pulmonary TB cases

Human Leucocyte Antigen Class I Diversity among Human Immunodeficiency Virus Exposed Negative and Positive Children in Cameroon.

The link between HLA types and HIV disease progression has been well established with alleles and residues associated to progression or non-progression to AIDS. Vertical transmission rate of HIV in Cameroon is still very high (10%). The aim of this study was to describe the diversity of HLA class I in infants born to HIV infected mothers and to determine the influence of HLA genotype in mother to child HIV transmission in Cameroon. Thirty four HIV infected infants and 28 HIV exposed but non infected infants born to HIV-positive mothers were enrolled in this study. HLA-A, HLA-B, group allele frequencies were determined by low-resolution polymerase chain reaction using sequencespecific primers. Nineteen HLA-A, 20 HLA-B allelic groups were identified in the study population. Among all the allelic variants identified, only HLA-B*44 allelic frequency resulted significantly increased in exposed non infected children (12.5% in exposed non infected versus 2.9% in exposed HIV-infected children, p=0.04). HLA-B*44 may be associated with the resistance to HIV infection upon mother to child exposure