Gene Chip Technology Identifies Sepsis

Gene chip technology shows potential for identifying life-threatening blood infections, suggests a new study.

Based on studies in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, MO, USA) propose that the genetic profiles of patients' blood could accurately distinguish sepsis from widespread non-infectious inflammation 94% of the time. The molecular profiles measure differences in patterns of gene expression that are unique to sepsis versus non-infectious inflammation.

The researchers simulated illness in four groups of mice: each of three groups had a varying severity of sepsis and a fourth had systemic non-infectious inflammation. Using microarrays--also known as gene chips--they created molecular profiles based on the abundance of messenger RNA expressed in immune cells taken from the blood of the sick mice. These profiles were compared with profiles from the blood of control mice.

The researchers looked at the activity of thousands of genes 24 hours after the onset of sickness, with the goal of identifying all the genes that might be markers of inflammation and infection. They found small increases in gene expression among hundreds of genes, but it was not the magnitude of change in gene expression that accurately distinguished sepsis from systemic inflammation. Instead, it was the pattern of changes in gene expression that proved to be important. The study was published in the November 2006 issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

"Our findings hold out hope that scientists could develop a simple bedside blood test that would greatly speed the diagnosis of sepsis,” said lead author J. Perren Cobb, M.D., director of Washington University's Center for Critical Illness and Health Engineering. "We could in a few hours determine if a patient had a blood infection and treat them right away.”



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