The nonspecific marker of PTX3 in diagnosing pulmonary tuberculosis and literature review

Abstract

Abstract Objective To investigate the diagnostic value of plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) pentraxin (PTX3) levels in pulmonary tuberculosis(TB). Methods Bioinformatic database GSE34608 was obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus databases (GEO) in NCBI. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between TB and control cases were analyzed using R software. Besides, plasma samples from 126 patients and BALF samples from 68 patients admitted to our hospital were collected to measure PTX3 levels by using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Results A total of 1179 GEGs which including PTX3 were obtained. In addition, the difference of plasma PTX3 level between TB, community-acquired pneumonia(CAP) and lung tumor was not statistically significant (P = 0.871), but BALF PTX3 level in TB was significantly higher than that in CAP and lung tumor (P<0.001). The area under ROC curve (AUC) of plasma PTX3 and BALF PTX3 level in diagnosing TB was 0.544 and 0.783, respectively. Conclusion BALF PTX3 level, not plasma PTX3 level, has the potential to serve as biomarker to differentiate TB from CAP and lung tumor.