témavezető: Bíró Sándor
helyszín (magyar oldal): Debreceni Egyetem helyszín rövidítés: DEÁOK
A kutatási téma leírása:
Systemic mycoses are infections, caused by any fungus, that invade beyond the superficial surfaces into tissues that are normally sterile. In immunologically healthy individuals, fungal infections do not often develop on contact or inhalation of fungus spores. Mycoses often develop in immunocompromised individuals, such as individuals with neutropenia, AIDS patients and people taking chemotherapy. The current gold standard for the diagnosis of invasive fungal infections lacks absolute sensitivity and specificity, and the specific morphological identification in the culture medium takes days to be possible. This leads to delay in the commencement of specific fungal treatment and eventual high mortality rate. The need for faster and more reliable diagnostic methods for systemic mycoses has pushed researchers into the search for mycoses specific biomarkers. Deregulations of the expression of certain miRNAs have been observed in many disease conditions, including systemic mycoses. Exosomes carry cargo molecules, including nucleic acids and proteins from donor cells to target cells where they influence metabolism. They can be found in many body fluids, including blood, and they have been shown to have unique miRNA signatures. They have also been exploited for several disease diagnostics. It is on this basis that we intend to purify exosomes from blood plasma of fevered neutropenia patients suspected to have mycoses, evaluate the miRNA expression, and sequence the miRNAs. We hypothesized that there will be a significant difference in the exosomal miRNA expression in the test group when compared to the control. If the result goes the way of our hypothesis, it will be an indication that miRNAs could serve as a diagnostic marker and possible therapeutic target.
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