According to researchers, the genetic markers will help pave the way to predict who will succumb to debilitating lung infection and use the information for vaccines, better diagnose and early treatment of the disease.
“Although people have been studying TB for more than a century, there is still a desperate need for better prognostic and diagnostic tests and more information about the body’s response to MTB infection, which may also help in the design of vaccines and treatments,” said Anne O’Garra, of the Medical Research Council, who led the study.
Genetic profiles compliedIn the new study, researchers drew blood from TB patients and from healthy people in UK, US and South Africa.
They then analyzed the gene activity in the blood cells and complied profiles of the genetic activity in the blood.
It was noted that people with active infections had 393 genes with activity different from that seen in healthy people.
The same gene expression was found in about 10 percent of patients with latent infections, indicating that they were vulnerable and may go on to develop the disease even if their infection is currently dormant.
The researchers will follow up the patients to see if they go on to develop the full blown symptoms of TB in future.
If the results are promising, the blood profiles could be the first means of predicting who is likely to get sick from TB.
Lead researcher Dr Anne O’Garra of the MRC’s National Institute for Medical Research in London, said, “If you could predict which so-called carriers of TB will progress to the full-blown disease, this would have major ramifications for stopping the global epidemic.
“We just have to prove it now, but it’s very promising.”
The study was published in the journal ‘Nature.’
A little about tuberculosisTuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection caused by a germ called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is an infectious disease which usually affects the lungs, but can also damage other parts of the body.
TB is transmitted through the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. Symptoms of TB include coughing up blood or mucus, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats.
You are more likely to get TB if you have a weak immune system
. in healthy people the infection generally causes no symptoms.
If exposed to the infection, there is an urgent need to go to the doctor for tests. TB if not treated properly can be deadly. The disease can be cured with a course of antibiotics.