title: Enabling biomarkers for tuberculosis control.
abstract: Accelerated control of tuberculosis (TB) requires better control measures. Biomarkers, which reliably diagnose active TB or even predict risk of disease progression in individuals, could facilitate rapid diagnosis and treatment of TB patients and allow preventive measures for latently  infected individuals with a high risk of TB. Moreover, biomarkers could speed up clinical trials with novel drug and vaccine candidates. Three platforms of global biomarker profiling will be described, with an emphasis on the most recent achievements: transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics.  Moreover, we will discuss the need for computational analyses to make the best use of the plethora of data generated by biomarker research. Aside from their potential prognostic and diagnostic value, biomarkers could provide deeper insight into pathological processes underlying disease, and  hence form the basis for novel intervention measures that target host molecules and pathways. We propose that biosignatures, which discriminate active TB from both latent infection and uninfected status, as well as from other diseases, will become available within the next decade. However,  simple, low-cost biomarker-based point-of-care diagnosis will probably not be achieved in the next few years.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Maertzdorf
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.forename: S H E
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kaufmann
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D000995:Antitubercular Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D005819:Genetic Markers; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D055432:Metabolomics; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D040901:Proteomics; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000382:microbiology; D032581:Tuberculosis Vaccines / Q000627:therapeutic use
chemical_list: D000995:Antitubercular Agents; D015415:Biomarkers; D005819:Genetic Markers; D032581:Tuberculosis Vaccines