Department of Infection Biology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2021 Dec 16;11:793954. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2021.793954. eCollection 2021.
Despite encouraging progress over the past decade, malaria remains a major global health challenge. Its severe form accounts for the majority of malaria-related deaths, and early diagnosis is key for a positive outcome. However, this is hindered by the non-specific symptoms caused by malaria, which often overlap with those of other viral, bacterial and parasitic infections. In addition, current tools are unable to detect the nature and degree of vital organ dysfunction associated with severe malaria, as complications develop silently until the effective treatment window is closed. It is therefore crucial to identify cheap and reliable early biomarkers of this wide-spectrum disease. microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNAs, are rapidly released into the blood circulation upon physiological changes, including infection and organ damage. The present review details our current knowledge of miRNAs as biomarkers of specific organ dysfunction in patients with malaria, and both promising candidates identified by pre-clinical models and important knowledge gaps are highlighted for future evaluation in humans. miRNAs associated with infected vectors are also described, with a view to expandind this rapidly growing field of research to malaria transmission and surveillance.
尽管在过去十年中取得了令人鼓舞的进展，但疟疾仍然是全球主要的健康挑战之一。其严重形式导致了大多数与疟疾相关的死亡，早期诊断是取得积极结果的关键。然而，这受到疟疾引起的非特异性症状的阻碍，这些症状常常与其他病毒、细菌和寄生虫感染的症状重叠。此外，目前的工具无法检测与严重疟疾相关的重要器官功能障碍的性质和程度，因为并发症在有效治疗窗口关闭之前会悄悄发展。因此，确定这种广谱疾病的廉价可靠的早期生物标志物至关重要。microRNAs (miRNAs) 是一类小型非编码 RNA，在包括感染和器官损伤在内的生理变化时会迅速释放到血液循环中。本综述详细介绍了我们目前对 miRNAs 作为疟疾患者特定器官功能障碍生物标志物的认识，强调了临床前模型中确定的有前途的候选标志物以及未来在人类中评估的重要知识空白。还描述了与受感染载体相关的 miRNAs，以期将这一快速发展的研究领域扩展到疟疾传播和监测。
