Molecular Signatures of Ebola Virus Infection in Patients and Cells V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Differential gene expression of markers of Ebola Virus infection in West African Ebola Virus Disease patients and a healthy control group
IRAS ID
171564
Contact name
Andrew J Bosworth
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Public Health England
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, 19 days
Research summary
This study is intended to fully utilize data acquired as part of a next-generation sequencing study of ~200 samples retrieved from West Africa during the 2014 Ebolavirus Outbreak. It is possible to analyse the sequenced data to look for biomarkers of Ebola Virus Disease which may correlate with severity of disease and potentially patient outcome. In order to perform this analysis it is necessary to analyse a control group which are not regularly exposed to agents endemic to West Africa (such as Malaria, Typhoid) and which have not contracted Ebola Virus in order to act as a background for biomarker expression analysis. Messenger RNA will be quantified to profile gene expression and compare the dataset produced from negative participants with data acquired from the patient group which has already been collected in Africa.
From 30 samples will be collected from interested participants working in Public Health England Porton Down, Public Health England Colindale, the University of Liverpool, or the University of Southampton who consider themselves to be healthy and ethnically African.
In addition to this, it is the intention to ask if donors are willing to gift blood to the project for us to use their isolated CD14+ Peripheral Blood Monocytes as a reagent in infection studies to help us analyse the impact of Ebola Virus in vitro and identify proteins which interact with the virus in these cells.
This study will enhance our understanding of Ebola Virus Disease and may reveal novel biomarkers of severe infection which can act as prognostic indicators for clinicians, and potentially identify targets for the development of therapeutics.
REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1958
Date of REC Opinion
19 Jan 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion