AsianScientist (Mar. 15, 2016) – Researchers from the Nanjing University School of Life Sciences in China may have found a biomarker for early diagnosis of Ebola. Their work is published in Cell Research as a letter to the editor.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a severe infectious disease caused by the Ebola virus. From 2013 to 2015. EVD caused an epidemic in West Africa which resulted in at least 24,000 suspected cases and 10,000 confirmed deaths.
Early diagnosis of EVD is not only essential for implementation of effective interventions but also critical for prevention of the spread of infection. However, it is particularly difficult to diagnose EVD at an early stage. Ebola causes symptoms seen in many other infections, including malaria, typhoid, and influenza. Some patients even develop the illness without specific signs and symptoms.
Current methods to diagnose suspected Ebola virus infection include reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, antigen-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G ELISA.
Previous studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs) produced by eukaryotic cells and viruses are present in human blood in highly stable, cell-free forms. These so-called circulating miRNAs can serve as non-invasive biomarkers for the early diagnosis of various diseases, including viral diseases. Since there are few established methods to diagnose EVD at early stage, the Nanjing team instead targeted EVD-specific small miRNAs that can be detected in human blood.
They identified the sequence of an miRNA-like fragment encoded by the Ebola virus and confirmed its presence in the blood of EVD patients using qRT-PCR, Northern blotting and TA-cloning/sequencin.
Strikingly, their results showed that the miRNA-like fragment they found existed in acute phase but disappeared in recovery phase of EVD survivors. This miRNA-like fragment was detectable in EVD patients before development of viremia with detectable Ebola genomic RNA, suggesting that it is an earlier biomarker than genomic RNA, and could advance the diagnosable window for EVD.
The article can be found at: Chen et al.(2016) An Ebola Virus-encoded MicroRNA-like Fragment Serves as a Biomarker for Early Diagnosis of Ebola Virus Disease.
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Source: Nanjing University; Photo: CDC Global/Flickr/CC.
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