Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Open Access

Abstract

Gene Expression Profiling of Tuberculous Meningitis Co-infected with HIV

Ghantasala S. Sameer Kumar, Abhilash K. Venugopal, Manoj Kumar Kashyap, Rajesh Raju, Arivusudar Marimuthu, Shyam Mohan Palapetta, Yashwanth Subbanayya, Renu Goel, Ankit Chawla, Jyoti Bajpai Dikshit, Pramila Tata, H. C. Harsha, Jagadeesha Maharudraiah, Y. L. Ramachandra, Parthasarathy Satishchandra, T. S. Keshava Prasad, Akhilesh Pandey, Anita Mahadevan

Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is a fatal form of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection of the central nervous system (CNS). The similarities in the clinical and radiological findings in TBM cases with or without HIV make the diagnosis very challenging. Identification of genes, which are differentially expressed in brain tissues of HIV positive and HIV negative TBM patients, would enable better understanding of the molecular aspects of the infection and would also serve as an initial platform to evaluate potential biomarkers. Here, we report the identification of 796 differentially regulated genes in brain tissues of TBM patients co-infected with HIV using oligonucleotide DNA microarrays. We also performed immunohistochemical validation and confirmed the abundance of four gene products-glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), serpin peptidase inhibitor, clade A member 3 (SERPINA3), thymidine phosphorylase (TYMP/ ECGF1) and heat shock 70 kDa protein 8 (HSPA8). Our study paves the way for understanding the mechanism of TBM in HIV positive patients and for further validation of potential disease biomarkers.