Omics in Tuberculosis Diagnosis: Today and Tomorrow

The term “omics” refers to collective high-throughput approaches that include genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics. Primary focus of OMIC technologies includes identification of genes and genomic variants (genomics), mRNA expression levels (transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics) and low molecular weight metabolites (metabolomics) in cell or tissue type. Omics technologies may lead to detection of the novel molecular signatures (gene/protein/metabolites) which are specific to disease and may serve as a promising candidate for early diagnosis, prediction of therapeutic response and prognosis of disease. Individually, these technologies have contributed significantly towards medical advances. Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is one of the deadly diseases, and worldwide millions of people suffer from TB and die every year. Diagnostics constitutes the most important component of TB control programme, and in recent years considerable progress has been made in the field of TB diagnosis. However, a rapid, cost-effective point-of-care (POC) diagnostic test for different forms of tuberculosis is still lacking. In this context, recent advancements utilising the multidimensional omic approach including genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics provide an improved platform for discovering the key molecular signatures to facilitate TB diagnostics and predicting treatment response. Utilising advanced and integrated omics technologies, recently there has been a tremendous progress in the field of biomarker discovery for TB diagnostics to achieve the goals set by the World Health Organization (WHO) End TB Strategy and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) Strategy for tuberculosis. This chapter is focused on various TB diagnostics based on various omics approaches with main emphasis on genomics and proteomics.