Domestic mould exposure and invasive aspergillosis—air sampling ofAspergillusspp. spores in homes of hematological patients, a pilot study

AbstractBackground And Objective:Aspergillus fumigatus is a major pathogen causing nosocomial infections. Hospital outbreaks of invasive aspergillosis have been associated with the renovation and construction of buildings. Building construction work for fire safety upgrading was undertaken during a 16-week period in 2001 at Box Hill Hospital. This study was designed to examine the effect of construction on invasive aspergillosis when using standard and additional protective measures.Methods:Baseline air sampling was conducted in 18 areas. The validity of the air sampling was assessed by comparing the ability of two air samplers to detect Aspergillus conidia. Surveillance of nosocomial Aspergillus infection was conducted by reviewing the records of patients with a sputum culture positive for Aspergillus and those prescribed amphotericin or itraconazole for the period of construction activity and the same period the previous year.Results:Aspergillus was isolated infrequently and there was no statistically significant difference in the levels of viable pathogenic fungi between areas where construction work was undertaken and areas where it was not undertaken. A moderate agreement was observed between the two air samplers (kappa = 0.4; P < .05). There was no difference in the incidence of invasive aspergillosis between 2000 and 2001 (incidence density ratio, 1.2; 95% confidence interval, 0.3 to 4.1).Conclusion:The influence of construction work performed with protective measures needs to be examined in an environment with higher levels of airborne fungi to confirm the findings of this study (Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2003;24:472-476).

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Diagnostic biomarkers for invasive aspergillosis utilizing weighted gene co-expression network analysis

10.21203/rs.3.rs-27305/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Weiwei Deng ◽

Yubo Ma ◽

Panpan Liang ◽

Chen Huang ◽

Yi Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Network Analysis ◽

Invasive Aspergillosis ◽

Bacterial Infections ◽

High Sensitivity ◽

Roc Curves ◽

Microarray Dataset ◽

High Expression ◽

Hub Genes ◽

Diagnostic Biomarkers ◽

Hematological Patients

Abstract Background: Invasive aspergillosis (IA) has a significant mortality in immunocompromised patients. In recent years, with more aggressive immunosuppressed therapies, the incidence of IA was increasing. However, diagnostic biomarkers with high sensitivity and specificity remain rare. To get new diagnostic biomarkers, microarray dataset GSE78000 was analyzed. Methods: Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to identify hub genes. Roc curves were employed for investigating diagnostic biomarkers for IA.Results: Hub genes were TLR4, TP53I3/PIG3, TMTC1, ITGAM, CYSTM1, FAR1, GAS7 and MKNK1. However, after we compared gene expression of hematological patients suffering from IA with non-IA patients, only TLR4, TP53I3/PIG3 and TMTC1 were significantly high expression in IA patients. At the optimal cut‐off value, TLR4 can diagnose patients with IA with 78.3% sensitivity and 72.7% specificity. TP53I3/PIG3 can diagnose patients with IA with 91.3% sensitivity and 54.5% specificity. TMTC1 can diagnose patients with IA with 78.3% sensitivity and 81.8% specificity. In addition, the data of hematological patients suffering from Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E.coli) infections were also analyzed. The results showed that TLR4 and TP53I3/PIG3 were also significantly high expression in S. aureus and E.coli infections, while only TP53I3/PIG3 was obviously higher expression in patients with bacterial infections compared with IA. As for TMTC1, we cannot annotate the gene from the microarray data. Conclusions: our results suggested that TLR4, TP53I3/PIG3 and TMTC1 might be used for the diagnosis of IA, and TP53I3/PIG3 can also be used to discriminate hematological aspergillosis and bacterial infections.

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