DOE, university scientists identify Ebola biomarkers

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and a collaboration of universities have found a biomarker indicator that can identify which patients infected with Ebola are most at risk of death.

The discovery, published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, turned up 11 biomarkers that differentiated fatal infections from non-fatal ones, as well as two that actually predicted which patients were most likely to die. The findings represent a sizable boon for clinicians, allowing them to potentially prioritize available resources for the sickest patients, according to Yoshihiro Kawaoka, the study’s senior author and a virology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Our team studied thousands of molecular clues in each of these samples, sifting through extensive data on the activity of genes, proteins, and other molecules to identify those of most interest,” Katrina Waters, PNNL team leader and another author of the paper, said. “This may be the most thorough analysis yet of blood samples of patients infected with the Ebola virus.”

The results were pulled from blood samples acquired during the Sierra Leone outbreak of 2014. Over the course of the study, the team analyzed lipid and metabolism byproducts, as well as activity levels of genes and proteins. In the process, they determined that survivors had higher levels of some immune-related molecules and lower levels of others, comparatively. Those the disease killed possessed higher levels of the virus, changes in their plasma lipids involved in critical body systems like blood coagulation and greater activation of some immune cells. The team also discovered that many infected patients also had molecular signals that overlapped with the condition known as sepsis.

In addition to DOE scientists, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the University of Tokyo and the University of Sierra Leone were involved in the study.