ArticleScientific reports2026
Multicohort assessment of plasma metabolic signatures of tuberculosis disease in children: a retrospective cross-sectional study.
Article in Scientific reports, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Kynurenine Pathway in Tuberculosis: Focus on Immunometabolic Regulation, Compartment-Specific Biology, and Therapeutic Potential.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- A multi-omics study reveals pathway-level insights and predictive biomarkers in pediatric TB.Clinical proteomics · 2026Article
- A Year in Review on Tuberculosis and Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria Disease: A 2026 Update for Clinicians and Scientists.Pathogens & immunity · 2026Review
- Exploring non-sputum biosignatures for tuberculosis triage and diagnosis in children living with HIV.Expert review of molecular diagnostics · 2025Review
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24 authors.
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Abstract
Microbiological tests for tuberculosis (TB) disease in children have suboptimal accuracy and respiratory samples are often challenging to obtain. Using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, we performed plasma high-resolution metabolomics (HRM) to identify blood-based biomarkers associated with TB disease in children. We analyzed plasma samples from 438 children 0-14 years being evaluated for TB disease in India, Peru, Uganda, The Gambia, and South Africa. All children underwent a standard clinical evaluation and were followed up after 3 months. Children were classified as Confirmed (n = 104), Unconfirmed (n = 108), or Unlikely TB (n = 226) as per NIH consensus definitions. Controlling for age and study site, we found creatine, alanine, retinol, citrulline, fumarate, and tryptophan to be significantly decreased in children with Confirmed TB disease versus those with Unlikely TB, while cortisol, nicotinamide, and butyrylcarnitine were increased (FDR-corrected p-value < 0.2). Using logistic regression, we found this nine-metabolite signature had an area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.72 (95% CI (0.67 - 0.82) in the test set of participants with Confirmed and Unlikely TB and an AUC of 0.49 (95% CI 0.42 - 0.55) in the Unconfirmed TB group. These results show a nine-metabolite plasma signature has moderate accuracy for identification of Confirmed TB disease in children.
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