ArticleBMC pediatrics2025
Cell-free DNA next-generation sequencing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis obtained from plasma of children with active tuberculosis.
Article in BMC pediatrics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Binding specificity of IgG antibodies to mycobacterial DNA in plasmas of patients with tuberculosis and healthy controls.ImmunoHorizons · 2026Article
- Exploring non-sputum biosignatures for tuberculosis triage and diagnosis in children living with HIV.Expert review of molecular diagnostics · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDifficulties in microbiologically confirming childhood tuberculosis (TB) can result in delayed treatment and increased disease severity.
methodsIn this study, we for the first time used whole genome next-generation sequencing (NGS) to detect cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) in plasma from children.
resultsWe enrolled 94 children with active TB and 32 children with other respiratory infections. Combining NGS with probe capture enrichment (targeted cfNGS) showed higher coverage and detecting capability than did NGS alone. The targeted cfNGS showed slightly lower sensitivity (31.9% vs. 44.7%, P = 0.072) and specificity (96.9% vs. 100.0%, P = 0.236) to those of sputum tested using Xpert. Agreement between cfNGS-plasma and Xpert-sputum was weak (κ = 0.217). Concordant results were obtained for only 85 children (67.5%; 16 cases positive by both tests and 69 cases negative by both tests). A total of 40 children with MTB culture negative results were tested to have positive cfNGS-plasma or Xpert-sputum outcomes, yielding a significantly increased percentage of children with bacteriological evidence (20.2% [19/94] for MTB culture-positive only vs. 62.8% [59/94] for cfNGS-plasma, Xpert-sputum or culture positive).
conclusionsThese data suggest that cfNGS performed well for diagnosing TB using plasma from children. cfNGS may be a new method for diagnosing patients with paucibacillary TB.
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