title: Accurate preterm labor diagnosis using a CD55-TLR4 combination biomarker model.
abstract: We previously demonstrated immune activation in the maternal peripheral circulation associated with preterm labor (PTL). There was an elevation in WBC mRNA of anti-inflammatory complement decay-accelerating factor (CD55) and the innate-immune response activating toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). These findings suggested that collectively, these two molecules might serve as useful biomolecules to aid in the diagnosis of PTL. In this study, we used a combined marker approach to determine whether a dual marker model utilizing both CD55 and TLR4 mRNA levels to classify PTL would increase diagnostic accuracy compared to either molecule alone. Two methods were evaluated; a linear discriminant (LD) method and a distribution free (DF) method, in order to find the optimal linear combination of TLR4 and CD55 data to diagnose PTL accurately. Our results indicated that a combined CD55-TLR4 dual marker model could provide statistically significant improvements compared to CD55 or TLR4 single marker models for PTL classification performance.
authors.affiliation: Microarray & Bioinformatics Core, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, USA.
authors.forename: Siddharth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pratap
authors.forename: Laura E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Michael G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Izban
authors.forename: Stella
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nowicki
authors.forename: Bogdan J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Nowicki
keywords: CD55; Decay Accelerating Factor (DAF); Preterm Labor (PTL); Toll-Like Receptor 4 (TLR4)