Clinical value of the plasma circular RNA hsa_circ_0009024 in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis

Abstract

Objective Detecting plasma level of circular RNA (circRNA) hsa_circ_0009024 in pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) patients, and evaluating its diagnostic value for TB. Methods From January 2016 to December 2016, a hosptial-based, case-control study was performed, which include 90 untreated active pulmonary tuberculosis patients (TB group), 75 healthy people (healthy control)and 84 patient with other diseases (other disease group). Plasma level of circRNA hsa_circ_0009024 was detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, the 90 patients with TB were divided into different subgroups according to cavity formation and the lung fields involvement: patients without lung cavity (55 cases) vs those with lung cavity (35 cases), patients with involvement of <2 lung fields (49 cases) vs ≥2 lung fields (41 cases). Plasma levels of hsa_circ_0009024 of 41 TB patientswere monitored andcomparedbefore and after 3 months anti-TB therapy. The sensitivity and specificity of plasma hsa_circ_0009024 were analyzed by using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The comparison between two groups was performed with Mann-Whitney U test and the comparison among multigroupswas conducted with Kruskal-Wallis H test. Results Plasma levels of hsa_circ_0009024 in TB patients [1.98 (1.42, 2.71)] were significantly higher than healthy controls [1.03 (0.78, 1.33)] and other disease groups [1.13 (0.77, 1.51)] (H=76.58, P<0.0001). Plasma levels of hsa_circ_0009024 in cavity pulmonary TB patients were higher than pulmonary TB patients without cavity (U=392.50, P<0.0001). Plasma levels of hsa_circ_0009024 in TB patients with involvement of ≥2 lung fields were higher than <2 lung fields (U=590.50, P=0.0008). As compared to pre-treatment [2.01 (1.41, 2.71)], the plasma hsa_circ_0009024 levels decreased significantly in 3 months [1.22 (0.85, 1.47)] (U=292.50, P<0.0001) after anti-TB therapy. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of plasma hsa_circ_0009024 in discriminating the patients with TB from normal controls, pneumonia patients and lung cancer patients were 0.841 and 0.811, respectively. Conclusion The hsa_circ_0009024 can be used as a potential biomarker in TB diagnosis and monitoring.(Chin J Lab Med, 2018, 41: 399-404) Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary; RNA; Biomarkers