CXCL8 and leprosy: Based on the results of RNA-seq with more than 2-fold upregulation in leprosy patients compared with non-leprosy controls followed by RT-PCR confirmation, the following 12 genes were identified and evaluated as the potential diagnostic biomarkers for leprosy: ATP, CCL2/MCP-1, IL-8, JAKMIP2, ND1, SERPINB2, FLJ10489, LINC00659, LOC34487, LOC101928143, MIR22, and NCF1C. The list of accession numbers/ID numbers for the genes as potential diagnostic biomarkers mentioned in the text and included in the NCBI search is shown in Supplementary Table S3.