The Association between Circulating microRNAs and the Risk of Active Disease Development from Latent Tuberculosis Infection: a Nested Case-Control Study

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the deadliest communicable diseases. Biomarkers predicting the risk of active disease development from latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) are urgently needed for precise intervention. This study aimed to identify potential circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) playing such a role in Chinese population. Based on a prospective study aiming to track the development of active TB among rural residents with LTBI, the baseline levels of circulating miRNAs were retrospectively compared between those who developed TB (case group) and those age-gender matched controls remain free of TB (contraol group) during the follow-up. Agilent human miRNA microarray were used to select differently expressed circulating miRNAs and verified by subsequent real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Six candidate miRNAs were expressed at statistically significant levels between the two groups at the baseline, as determined by microarray. Following verification among 150 study participants by RT-qPCR, the levels of hsa-miR-16-5p (P < 0.001) and hsa-miR-451a (P < 0.001) were found to be significantly lower in case group compared to control group. The combined areas under curves (AUCs) and precision-recall curves (PRCs) were 0.84, 0.86 and 0.85, 0.87 for hsa-miR-16-5p and hsa-miR-451a, respectively. hsa-miR-451a combined with body mass index (BMI) and prior history of TB presented the best performance, with a sensitivity of 80.82% and an acceptable specificity of 79.22%. After adjusting the two co-variables, the AUC of hsa-miR-451a was 0.78. Circulating levels of hsa-miR-451a showed potential to predict development of active TB from LTBI in a Chinese population. Further studies are warranted to verify these findings in varied study settings. IMPORTANCE Approximately a quarter of the world population are infected with M. tuberculosis and about 5% to 10% of these might develop active disease in their lifetime. Preventive treatment could effectively protect individuals at a high risk of developing active disease from LTBI, and is regarded as a critical component of End TB Strategies. Biomarkers which could accurately identify high-risk population and predict the risk of disease development are urgently needed for developing local guidelines of LTBI management and precise intervention. A nested case-control study was designed to explore possible microRNAs related with TB occurrence based on a previous prospective study, which aimed to track the development of active TB among rural residents with LTBI. The baseline circulating levels of hsa-miR-16-5p and hsa-miR-451a were significantly lower in TB cases compared to those in LTBI controls. Further receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis found that hsa-miR-451a showed considerable potential to predict the development of active TB from LTBI.