Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae that affects the skin and nerves. The nerve damage in leprosy may be related to alterations in transcriptional factors, such as Krox-20, Oct-6, Sox-10. Thirty skin biopsies in leprosy patients and 15 non-leprosy skin biopsies were evaluated using RT-qPCR to assess Krox-20, Oct-6, and Sox-10 and these data was related with S-100 immunohistochemistry. Changes in gene expression were observed in the skin and dermal nerves of leprosy patients in Oct-6 and Sox-10. When comparing Oct-6 with S-100 IHC as diagnostic tests for leprosy, Oct-6 showed a sensitivity of 73.3%, and specificity of 100%, while S-100 IHC showed a sensitivity of 96.6% and specificity of 100%. Our data suggest Oct-6 could be an auxiliary biomarker specific to detecting changes in dermal nerves in leprosy and thus useful to health workers and pathologists with no expertise to observe nerve injuries in leprosy.

麻风病是一种由麻风分枝杆菌引起的感染性疾病，会影响皮肤和神经。麻风病中的神经损伤可能与转录因子的改变有关，例如Krox-20，Oct-6，Sox-10。使用RT-qPCR评估了麻风患者的30例皮肤活检和15例非麻风皮肤活检，以评估Krox-20，Oct-6和Sox-10，这些数据与S-100免疫组织化学有关。在麻风患者的皮肤和真皮神经中观察到的基因表达变化辛-6-和SOX-10。比较10月6日时以S-100 IHC作为麻风病的诊断测试，Oct-6的敏感性为73.3％，特异性为100％，而S-100 IHC的敏感性为96.6％，特异性为100％。我们的数据表明，Oct-6可能是一种辅助生物标志物，专门用于检测麻风病中真皮神经的变化，因此对没有专业知识来观察麻风病神经损伤的卫生工作者和病理学家有用。