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Gene ExpressionNCT06838780

Host Response to Infection by Direct Analysis of Leukocyte Single Cell-type Gene Expression/transcript Abundance, Direct LS-TA

An observational study of Gene Expression and Gene Expression Profiling, run by Chinese University of Hong Kong at 1 site in Hong Kong.

Active, not recruiting

Under way, not looking for participants. Everyone needed has enrolled. The study is still running.

Official record
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Trial summary

Febrile illness is a common condition, particularly among young patients and it is crucial to have an early triage of patients according to various aetiologies to enable appropriate treatment. Most diagnostic tests are targeted towards the detection of pathogens while other assays are mostly related to serum proteins. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 years and olderHealthy volunteers can take part
How many people
192 participants
Where
1 siteHong Kong
Study dates
1 Jan 2018to 1 Jan 2026
Phase
Observational
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 18 years and older
  • All sexes
  • Healthy volunteers accepted
  • Adult, Older adult

Study population: Patients with Infections were patients admitted to ward for treatment of infection.

Who may be able to join

  • Bacterial infection sample: positive isolation of organism in blood culture (Bacterial infection sample group)
  • Clinical diagnosed active TB (Tuberculosis infection group)

Who cannot join

  • End stage renal failure
  • Pregnancy
  • Infections for which long term antibiotic treatment is strongly recommended (including infective endocarditis, osteoarticular infections, cerebral or hepatic or lung abscesses, tuberculosis or nontuberculous mycobacterial infections)

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

Hong Kong1 site
  • Dept of Chemical Pathology, Chinese University of Hong Kong

    Hong Kong

Other trials in Hong Kong

About this study

Official title: Peripheral Blood Single Cell-type Expression Profile of Interferon-stimulated and Other Biomarker Genes for Triage of Febrile Patients

Febrile illness is a common condition, particularly among young patients and it is crucial to have an early triage of patients according to various aetiologies to enable appropriate treatment. Most diagnostic tests are targeted towards the detection of pathogens while other assays are mostly related to serum proteins. Blood cells transcriptome has been explored to differentiate bacterial and viral infections.

Here, we propose to develop a rapid test using the host responses in terms of gene expressions of single-cell populations of peripheral leukocytes (monocytes and granulocytes) to differentiate three major categories of infections that are bacterial, viral, and tuberculosis.

The assay is called Direct leukocyte single cell-type transcript abundance (TA) assay (DIRECT LS-TA) as it can directly determine the gene expression of a specified single cell-type (e.g. monocytes and granulocytes) among various leukocyte cell populations directly in a peripheral blood sample. Such results signify the nature of host response and can be used to indicate the type of infection (viral, bacterial or active tuberculosis).

Read the detailed description

DIRECT LS-TA is a ratio-based biomarker (RBB) for blood gene expression analysis which can be performed in commonly available equipments (e.g. qPCR or digital PCR machines). Using the ratio of TA of prior defined numerator gene and denominator gene, this RBB can quantify gene expression of the specified constitutional single cell-type (e.g. monocytes and granulocytes) inside a cell-mixture sample of Whole blood.

DIRECT LS-TA was a method pioneered by the PI [Tang 2017, https://patents.google.com/patent/US9589099B2/]. And it has been developed for quantification of early B cell response after vaccination [DOI: 10.3390/genes12070971].

Recently, the method is used to develop host response biomarkers after infection to differentiate the type of pathogens (such as viral, bacterial or active tuberculosis). Numerator and denominator genes have been identified by using public gene expression datasets for monocytes and granulocytes. Diagnostic performance was good using these public data.

Therefore, these RBBs will be applied in these retrospective samples to evaluate and compare their diagnostic (triage) performance of febrile patients into different pathogen etiologies.

Being tested
No intervention
Keywords
host response, transcriptome, Single cell-type gene expression, triage, fever, febrile patients
Medical subject headings
Infections, Virus Diseases, Bacterial Infections, Latent Tuberculosis, Fever

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • No interventionOther

    No intervention for this retrospective study

Study groups in NCT06838780
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Vaccination ControlsUp to 200 adult samples collected as the baseline of this study will be used to establish the reference ranges of the ratio-based biomarkers by quantitative PCR or digital PCR.
Receives: Other: No intervention
Bacterial infection samplesA retrospective sample of adult patients with positive bacterial blood culture.
Receives: Other: No intervention
Tuberculosis samplesA retrospective sample of adult patients who were diagnosed to have active tuberculosis disease.
Receives: Other: No intervention

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Viral host response Direct LS-TA in monocytes (Type I interferon response)

    Direct LS-TA is a kind of RBB that can be readily quantified by qPCR or dPCR of a pair of genes, the RBB numerator gene and the RBB denominator gene. The biomarker is the ratio of the 2 genes.

    Single cell-type: Monocyte. RBB numerator gene: IFI27 or IFI44L. RBB denominator gene: PSAP, CTSS or CPVL.

    The various RBB (e.g. IFI27/PSAP and IFI44L/PSAP ratios) will be compared in terms of their sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic performance in the vaccination control samples and samples from infection groups. AUC of ROC analysis will be performed where appropriate.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

  2. Viral host response Direct LS-TA in granulocytes (Type I interferon response)

    Direct LS-TA is a kind of RBB that can be readily quantified by qPCR or dPCR of a pair of genes, the RBB numerator gene and the RBB denominator gene. The biomarker is the ratio of the 2 genes.

    Single cell-type: Granulocyte. RBB numerator gene: RSAD2 or IFIT1. RBB denominator gene: SAT1 or SRGN.

    The various RBB will be compared in terms of their sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic performance in the vaccination control samples and samples from infection groups. AUC of ROC analysis will be performed where appropriate.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

  3. Bacterial infection host response Direct LS-TA in monocytes (pro-inflammatory response)

    Direct LS-TA is a kind of RBB that can be readily quantified by qPCR or dPCR of a pair of genes, the RBB numerator gene and the RBB denominator gene. The biomarker is the ratio of the 2 genes.

    Single cell-type: Monocyte. RBB numerator gene: VNN1, or NLRC4. RBB denominator gene: PSAP, CTSS or CPVL.

    The various RBBs will be compared in terms of their sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic performance in the vaccination control samples and samples from infection groups. AUC of ROC analysis will be performed where appropriate.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

  4. Bacterial infection host response Direct LS-TA in granulocytes (pro-inflammatory response)

    Direct LS-TA is a kind of RBB that can be readily quantified by qPCR or dPCR of a pair of genes, the RBB numerator gene and the RBB denominator gene. The biomarker is the ratio of the 2 genes.

    Single cell-type: Granulocyte. RBB numerator gene: ALPL, ARG1, or ANXA3. RBB denominator gene: SAT1 or SRGN. The various RBB will be compared in terms of their sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic performance in the vaccination control samples and samples from infection groups. AUC of ROC analysis will be performed where appropriate.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

  5. Active TB host response Direct LS-TA in monocytes (Type II interferon response)

    Direct LS-TA is a kind of RBB that can be readily quantified by qPCR or dPCR of a pair of genes, the RBB numerator gene and the RBB denominator gene. The biomarker is the ratio of the 2 genes.

    Single cell-type: Monocyte. RBB numerator gene: WARS1, ATF3 or CALHM6. RBB denominator gene: PSAP, CTSS or CPVL. The various RBB will be compared in terms of their sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic performance in the vaccination control samples and samples from infection groups. AUC of ROC analysis will be performed where appropriate.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

  6. Active TB host response Direct LS-TA in granulocytes (Type II interferon response)

    Direct LS-TA is a kind of RBB that can be readily quantified by qPCR or dPCR of a pair of genes, the RBB numerator gene and the RBB denominator gene. The biomarker is the ratio of the 2 genes.

    Single cell-type: granulocyte. RBB numerator gene: ANKRD22, BATF2, CD274, FCGR1A or ETV7. RBB denominator gene: SAT1 or SRGN. The various RBB will be compared in terms of their sensitivity/specificity of diagnostic performance in the vaccination control samples and samples from infection groups. AUC of ROC analysis will be performed where appropriate.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

Secondary outcomes (1)
  1. Reference intervals and median of these DIRECT LS-TA RBB in the control group

    The median value and the central 95% range of each RBB will be determined.

    Measured: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted21 Feb 2025
  2. Study start1 Jan 2018
  3. Primary completion1 Jan 2026 (estimated)
  4. Study completion1 Jan 2026 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Observational
Observational model
Case-control
Time perspective
Retrospective
Enrolment
192 participants (actual)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT06838780
Sponsor's protocol ID
Direct LS-TA retrospective
Status last verified
Feb 2025
First submitted
17 Feb 2025
Last updated
3 Mar 2025
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Undecided: Descriptive statistics of each RBB (DIRECT LS-TA) will be provided on a reasonable request.

Publications

  • Tang NLS, Kwan TK, Huang D, Ma SL, Leung KS. Direct single cell-type gene expression analysis in peripheral blood: novel ratio-based gene expression biomarkers using 2 novel monocyte reference genes (PSAP and CTSS) for detection of bacterial infection. Hum Mol Genet. 2025 Aug 21;34(17):1458-1470. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddaf103.

    PubMed 40581066
  • Huang D, Liu AYN, Leung KS, Tang NLS. Direct Measurement of B Lymphocyte Gene Expression Biomarkers in Peripheral Blood Transcriptomics Enables Early Prediction of Vaccine Seroconversion. Genes (Basel). 2021 Jun 25;12(7):971. doi: 10.3390/genes12070971.

    PubMed 34202032
  • Huang B, Huang J, Chiang NH, Chen Z, Lui G, Ling L, Kwan MYW, Wong JSC, Mak PQ, Ling JWH, Lam ICS, Ng RWY, Wang X, Gao R, Hui DS, Ma SL, Chan PKS, Tang NLS. Interferon response and profiling of interferon response genes in peripheral blood of vaccine-naive COVID-19 patients. Front Immunol. 2024 Jan 10;14:1315602. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1315602. eCollection 2023.

    PubMed 38268924

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

An observational study of Gene Expression and Gene Expression Profiling, run by Chinese University of Hong Kong at 1 site in Hong Kong.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 2 inclusion and 3 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: under way, not looking for participants, as of the sponsor's last update on 3 Mar 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in Hong Kong. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Viral host response Direct LS-TA in monocytes (Type I interferon response) (time frame: 1 day (first collected sample after admission)). The study lists 6 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT06838780, which also lists 3 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 3 Mar 2025.

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