Clustering Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific CD154+CD4+ T cells for distinguishing tuberculosis disease from infection based on single-cell RNA-seq analysis

Abstract excerpt

Background Distinguishing between active tuberculosis disease (TBD) and latent tuberculosis infection (TBI) is crucial for TB control but remains challenging. Methods Single-cell RNA sequencing was conducted on purified Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB)-specific CD154 + CD4 + T cells. Results We observe a superior role of CD154 in detecting MTB infection, whereas its ability in distinguishing TBD from TBI is still...