Troldborg A, Thiel S, Mistegaard CE, Hansen A, Korsholm T, Stengaard‐Pedersen K, Loft AG. Plasma levels of H- and L-ficolin are increased in axial spondyloarthritis: improvement of disease identification.
Clin Exp Immunol 2020;
199:79-87. [PMID:
31518441 PMCID:
PMC6904737 DOI:
10.1111/cei.13374]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/08/2019] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) is a chronic inflammatory disease that primarily affects the axial skeleton. A predominance of innate versus adaptive immune responses have been reported in axSpA, indicating a prominent autoinflammatory component of the disease. Little is known about the lectin pathway proteins (LPPs) of the complement system in relation to axSpA. We have investigated LPPs in patients with axSpA and control individuals. Plasma samples were obtained from a cross-sectional cohort of 120 patients with a clinical diagnosis of axSpA and from 144 age- and gender-matched controls. The plasma concentrations of 11 LPPs were measured, using sandwich-type time-resolved immunofluorometric assays in patients and controls, and related to clinical diagnosis and disease activity. Three LPPs [H-ficolin (ficolin-3), L-ficolin (ficolin-2) and collectin liver 1 (CL-L1)] were significantly higher in axSpA patients than in controls (P < 0·0001) and one LPP, collectin kidney 1 (CL-K1), was significantly lower (P < 0·0001). Further, combining H- or L-ficolin concentrations above the 75th percentile of the respective H- or L-ficolin concentration measured in controls with human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-B27 positivity yielded axSpA diagnostic specificities of 99/99% and positive likelihood ratios of 68/62, respectively. H-ficolin and L-ficolin plasma concentrations were found to be elevated in axSpA patients regardless of time since diagnosis. H-ficolin and L-ficolin may represent diagnostic biomarkers for patients with axSpA and should be further evaluated. Our results showed no association between disease activity and the measured LPP concentrations. This result might be due to the cross-sectional design, and should be further investigated.
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