Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent

ABSTRACT It is unclear whether human progression to active tuberculosis disease (TB) risk signatures are viable endpoint criteria for evaluations of treatments in development. TB is the deadliest infectious disease globally and more efficacious vaccines are needed to reduce this mortality. However,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hannah Painter, Sasha E. Larsen, Brittany D. Williams, Hazem F. M. Abdelaal, Susan L. Baldwin, Helen A. Fletcher, Andrew Fiore-Gartland, Rhea N. Coler
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Society for Microbiology 2025-01-01
Series:mSphere
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/msphere.00864-24
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832583396103028736
author Hannah Painter
Sasha E. Larsen
Brittany D. Williams
Hazem F. M. Abdelaal
Susan L. Baldwin
Helen A. Fletcher
Andrew Fiore-Gartland
Rhea N. Coler
author_facet Hannah Painter
Sasha E. Larsen
Brittany D. Williams
Hazem F. M. Abdelaal
Susan L. Baldwin
Helen A. Fletcher
Andrew Fiore-Gartland
Rhea N. Coler
author_sort Hannah Painter
collection DOAJ
description ABSTRACT It is unclear whether human progression to active tuberculosis disease (TB) risk signatures are viable endpoint criteria for evaluations of treatments in development. TB is the deadliest infectious disease globally and more efficacious vaccines are needed to reduce this mortality. However, the immune correlates of protection for either preventing infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis or preventing TB disease have yet to be completely defined, making the advancement of candidate vaccines through the pipeline slow, costly, and fraught with risk. Human-derived correlate of risk (COR) gene signatures, which identify an individual’s risk of progressing to active TB disease, provide an opportunity for evaluating new therapies for TB with clear and defined endpoints. Though prospective clinical trials with longitudinal sampling are prohibitively expensive, the characterization of COR gene signatures is practical with preclinical models. Using a 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement) approach we reanalyzed heterogeneous publicly available transcriptional data sets to determine whether a specific set of COR signatures are viable endpoints in the preclinical pipeline. We selected RISK6, Sweeney3, and BATF2 human-derived blood-based RNA biosignatures because they require relatively few genes and have been carefully evaluated across several clinical cohorts. These data suggest that in certain experimental designs and in several tissue types, human COR signatures correlate with disease progression as measured by the bacterial burden in the preclinical TB model pipeline. We observed the best performance when the model most closely reflected human infection or disease conditions. Human-derived COR signatures offer an opportunity for high-throughput preclinical endpoint criteria of vaccine and drug therapy evaluations.IMPORTANCEUnderstanding the strengths or limitations of back-translating human-derived correlate of risk (COR) RNA signatures into the preclinical pipeline may help streamline down-selection of therapeutic vaccine and drug candidates and better align preclinical models with proposed clinical trial efficacy endpoints.
format Article
id doaj-art-30e6dafde8124fc4bc9f37f229f4de83
institution Kabale University
issn 2379-5042
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher American Society for Microbiology
record_format Article
series mSphere
spelling doaj-art-30e6dafde8124fc4bc9f37f229f4de832025-01-28T14:00:56ZengAmerican Society for MicrobiologymSphere2379-50422025-01-0110110.1128/msphere.00864-24Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependentHannah Painter0Sasha E. Larsen1Brittany D. Williams2Hazem F. M. Abdelaal3Susan L. Baldwin4Helen A. Fletcher5Andrew Fiore-Gartland6Rhea N. Coler7Department of Infection Biology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United KingdomCenter for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USACenter for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USACenter for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USACenter for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USADepartment of Infection Biology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United KingdomBiostatistics, Bioinformatics and Epidemiology Program, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, USACenter for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USAABSTRACT It is unclear whether human progression to active tuberculosis disease (TB) risk signatures are viable endpoint criteria for evaluations of treatments in development. TB is the deadliest infectious disease globally and more efficacious vaccines are needed to reduce this mortality. However, the immune correlates of protection for either preventing infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis or preventing TB disease have yet to be completely defined, making the advancement of candidate vaccines through the pipeline slow, costly, and fraught with risk. Human-derived correlate of risk (COR) gene signatures, which identify an individual’s risk of progressing to active TB disease, provide an opportunity for evaluating new therapies for TB with clear and defined endpoints. Though prospective clinical trials with longitudinal sampling are prohibitively expensive, the characterization of COR gene signatures is practical with preclinical models. Using a 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement) approach we reanalyzed heterogeneous publicly available transcriptional data sets to determine whether a specific set of COR signatures are viable endpoints in the preclinical pipeline. We selected RISK6, Sweeney3, and BATF2 human-derived blood-based RNA biosignatures because they require relatively few genes and have been carefully evaluated across several clinical cohorts. These data suggest that in certain experimental designs and in several tissue types, human COR signatures correlate with disease progression as measured by the bacterial burden in the preclinical TB model pipeline. We observed the best performance when the model most closely reflected human infection or disease conditions. Human-derived COR signatures offer an opportunity for high-throughput preclinical endpoint criteria of vaccine and drug therapy evaluations.IMPORTANCEUnderstanding the strengths or limitations of back-translating human-derived correlate of risk (COR) RNA signatures into the preclinical pipeline may help streamline down-selection of therapeutic vaccine and drug candidates and better align preclinical models with proposed clinical trial efficacy endpoints.https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/msphere.00864-24tuberculosistuberculosis vaccinesRNA risk signaturecorrelate of riskpreclinical drug studies
spellingShingle Hannah Painter
Sasha E. Larsen
Brittany D. Williams
Hazem F. M. Abdelaal
Susan L. Baldwin
Helen A. Fletcher
Andrew Fiore-Gartland
Rhea N. Coler
Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
mSphere
tuberculosis
tuberculosis vaccines
RNA risk signature
correlate of risk
preclinical drug studies
title Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
title_full Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
title_fullStr Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
title_full_unstemmed Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
title_short Backtranslation of human RNA biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
title_sort backtranslation of human rna biosignatures of tuberculosis disease risk into the preclinical pipeline is condition dependent
topic tuberculosis
tuberculosis vaccines
RNA risk signature
correlate of risk
preclinical drug studies
url https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/msphere.00864-24
work_keys_str_mv AT hannahpainter backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT sashaelarsen backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT brittanydwilliams backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT hazemfmabdelaal backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT susanlbaldwin backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT helenafletcher backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT andrewfioregartland backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent
AT rheancoler backtranslationofhumanrnabiosignaturesoftuberculosisdiseaseriskintothepreclinicalpipelineisconditiondependent