Rhinovirus Detection in Symptomatic and Asymptomatic XXXX : Value of Host Transcriptome Analysis.

@entity1 @entity281 @entity1729 @entity778
RATIONALE: Rhinoviruses (RVs) are a major cause of symptomatic @entity1729 in all age groups. However, RVs can frequently be detected in asymptomatic individuals. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the ability of host transcriptional profiling to differentiate between symptomatic RV @entity281 and incidental detection in @entity1 . METHODS: Previously healthy @entity1 younger than 2 years old (n   =   151) were enrolled at four study sites and classified into four clinical groups: RV- healthy control subjects (n   =   37), RV+ asymptomatic subjects (n   =   14), RV+ outpatients (n   =   30), and RV+ inpatients (n   =   70). Host responses were analyzed using whole-blood RNA transcriptional profiles. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: RV @entity281 induced a robust transcriptional signature, which was validated in three independent cohorts and by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction with high prediction accuracy. The immune profile of symptomatic RV @entity281 was characterized by overexpression of innate immunity and underexpression of adaptive immunity genes, whereas negligible changes were observed in asymptomatic RV+ subjects. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering identified two main clusters of subjects. The first included 93% of healthy control subjects and 100% of asymptomatic RV+ subjects, and the second comprised 98% of RV+ inpatients and 88% of RV+ outpatients. Genomic scores of healthy control subjects and asymptomatic RV+ @entity1 were similar and significantly lower than those of RV+ inpatients and outpatients (P   <   0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Symptomatic RV @entity281 induced a robust and reproducible transcriptional signature, whereas identification of RV in asymptomatic @entity1 was not associated with significant systemic transcriptional immune responses. Transcriptional profiling represents a useful tool to discriminate between active @entity281 and incidental @entity778 detection.
