Zeitschrift für Angewandte Bioinformatik und Computational Biology

Bioinformatics Probing of Tissue-Specific MiRNAs Overexpressed in Active Tuberculosis Reveals Induction of Multiple Cancer Pathways

Elvis Ndukong Ndzi, Ambily Nath IV, Achuthsankar S Nair, Chellappan Biju V, Shidhi PR, Ousman Tamgue, Alexis Ndjolo, Jules Roger Kuiate and Celine Nguefeu Nkenfou

This study attempts to discern the genes and pathways of tissue-specific miRNAs overexpressed in active tuberculosis (TB). The chosen 11 miRNAs were grouped into serum (S1), sputum (S2), and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) (S3) classes. DIANA-miRPath v3 was used for the bioinformatics analyses. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) practices were used to pinpoint the key regulatory channels and functional annotations associated with the latent state. ECMreceptor interaction, transcriptional misregulation in cancer, nonsmall cell lung cancer, proteoglycans, and pathways in cancer were identified as the prime pathways in TB-related miRNAs. S1 and S3 transcripts showed the unifying ECM-receptor interaction with collagen (COL) and laminin (LAM) genes common to both datasets. Further research on these cancer-related cascades could provide mechanistic and therapeutic insights into TB pathophysiology.