ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2016
Metabolomics Identifies Multiple Candidate Biomarkers to Diagnose and Stage Human African Trypanosomiasis.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03112655 (Diagnostic Tools for Human African Trypanosomiasis Elimination and Clinical Trials), which is not on this map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Diagnostic Tools for Human African Trypanosomiasis Elimination and Clinical Trials: WP4 Early Test-of-cure
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Metabolomic Biomarkers for the Human Diagnosis of Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Systematic Review.Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical · 2026Pooled it
- High-Resolution Plasma Metabolomics Identifies Alterations in Fatty Acid, Energy, and Micronutrient Metabolism in Adults Across the Leprosy Spectrum.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Article
- The intersection of hostMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2024Review
- Advances in the Immunology of the Host-Parasite Interactions in African Trypanosomosis, including Single-Cell Transcriptomics.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Neglected tropical disease (NTD) diagnostics: current development and operations to advance control.Pathogens and global health · 2024Review
- Review
- Cell-cell communication in African trypanosomes.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2023Review
- Alignment of multiple metabolomics LC-MS datasets from disparate diseases to reveal fever-associated metabolites.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2023Article
- Untargeted serum metabolomics analysis of Trichinella spiralis-infected mouse.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2023Article
- MetHoS: a platform for large-scale processing, storage and analysis of metabolomics data.BMC bioinformatics · 2022Article
- Metabolites From Trypanosome-Infected Cattle as Sensitive Biomarkers for Animal Trypanosomosis.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- [Sleeping Sickness: A Cause of False Positive HIV Rapid Diagnostic Tests].Medecine tropicale et sante internationale · 2021Article
- Tryp-ing Up Metabolism: Role of Metabolic Adaptations in Kinetoplastid Disease Pathogenesis.Infection and immunity · 2021Review
- Ranking Metabolite Sets by Their Activity Levels.Metabolites · 2021Article
- Cerebrospinal fluid metabolomics: detection of neuroinflammation in human central nervous system disease.Clinical & translational immunology · 2021Review
- Phosphatidylcholine PC ae C44:6 in cerebrospinal fluid is a sensitive biomarker for bacterial meningitis.Journal of translational medicine · 2020Article
- Alterations of Gut Microbiome and Metabolite Profiling in Mice Infected byFrontiers in immunology · 2020Article
- Generation of neuroinflammation in human African trypanosomiasis.Neurology(R) neuroimmunology & neuroinflammation · 2019Review
- Using detergent-enhanced LAMP for African trypanosome detection in human cerebrospinal fluid and implications for disease staging.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2019Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Treatment for human African trypanosomiasis is dependent on the species of trypanosome causing the disease and the stage of the disease (stage 1 defined by parasites being present in blood and lymphatics whilst for stage 2, parasites are found beyond the blood-brain barrier in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)). Currently, staging relies upon detecting the very low number of parasites or elevated white blood cell numbers in CSF. Improved staging is desirable, as is the elimination of the need for lumbar puncture. Here we use metabolomics to probe samples of CSF, plasma and urine from 40 Angolan patients infected with Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, at different disease stages. Urine samples provided no robust markers indicative of infection or stage of infection due to inherent variability in urine concentrations. Biomarkers in CSF were able to distinguish patients at stage 1 or advanced stage 2 with absolute specificity. Eleven metabolites clearly distinguished the stage in most patients and two of these (neopterin and 5-hydroxytryptophan) showed 100% specificity and sensitivity between our stage 1 and advanced stage 2 samples. Neopterin is an inflammatory biomarker previously shown in CSF of stage 2 but not stage 1 patients. 5-hydroxytryptophan is an important metabolite in the serotonin synthetic pathway, the key pathway in determining somnolence, thus offering a possible link to the eponymous symptoms of "sleeping sickness". Plasma also yielded several biomarkers clearly indicative of the presence (87% sensitivity and 95% specificity) and stage of disease (92% sensitivity and 81% specificity). A logistic regression model including these metabolites showed clear separation of patients being either at stage 1 or advanced stage 2 or indeed diseased (both stages) versus control.
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Registered trials
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