Publications by authors named "Melissa Mendez-Aranda"

Tuberculosis (TB) poses a significant global health threat, with high mortality rates if left untreated. Current sputum-based TB treatment monitoring methods face numerous challenges, particularly in relation to sample collection and analysis. This pilot study explores the potential of TB status assessment using DNA methylation (DNAm) signatures, which are gaining recognition as diagnostic and predictive tools for various diseases.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of infectious death globally, prompting the need for efficient diagnostic methods, which this study explores using buccal swabs to analyze DNA methylation signatures as a potential diagnostic tool.
  • Researchers collected buccal swabs from TB patients, those exposed to TB, and healthy controls in Sweden, discovering 5,644 significant differentially methylated CpG sites that helped distinguish patients from controls.
  • Validation in cohorts from Kenya and Peru provided a classifier using seven specific CpG sites, achieving high accuracy with an AUC of 0.94, indicating strong potential for using DNAm signatures in TB diagnostics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Helminth/tuberculosis (TB)-coinfection can reduce cell-mediated immunity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) and increase disease severity, although the effects are highly helminth species dependent. Mtb have long been ranked as the number one single infectious agent claiming the most lives. The only licensed vaccine for TB (BCG) offers highly variable protection against TB, and almost no protection against transmission of Mtb.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Host innate immune cells have been identified as key players in the early eradication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and in the maintenance of an anti-mycobacterial immune memory, which we and others have shown are induced through epigenetic reprogramming. Studies on human tuberculosis immunity are dominated by those using peripheral blood as surrogate markers for immunity. We aimed to investigate DNA methylation patterns in immune cells of the lung compartment by obtaining induced sputum from M.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Worldwide, nations have struggled during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, Latin America and the Caribbean faced an unmatched catastrophic toll. As of March 2022, the region has reported approximately 15% of cases and 28% of deaths worldwide.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, spreads via aerosols and the first encounter with the immune system is with the pulmonary-resident immune cells. The role of epigenetic regulations in the immune cells is emerging and we have previously shown that macrophages capacity to kill M. tuberculosis is reflected in the DNA methylome.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF