Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Kurume University School of Medicine, 67 Asahi-machi, Kurume 830-0011, Japan.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, Kurume University Hospital, 67 Asahi-machi, Kurume 830-0011, Japan.
Mediators Inflamm. 2021 Feb 1;2021:8825374. doi: 10.1155/2021/8825374. eCollection 2021.
Studies on serum leucine-rich alpha-2 glycoprotein (LRG) in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), are scarce; the methods for estimating disease activity are less established, particularly for CD. This study is aimed at evaluating the utility of serum LRG as a potential inflammatory marker for IBD and to investigate the LRG gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) as a possible source of serum LRG. Overall, 98 patients with UC and 96 patients with CD were prospectively enrolled and clinically evaluated; 92 age-matched individuals served as the healthy controls. The blood samples were analyzed for serum LRG levels and routine laboratory parameters. Disease activity was assessed clinically and endoscopically. Finally, LRG gene expression in the PBMCs from a different cohort (41 patients with UC, 34 patients with CD, and 30 healthy controls) was examined. The serum LRG levels were higher during active disease than during inactive disease; additionally, serum LRG levels were positively correlated with clinical disease activity, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, and other laboratory parameters in patients with UC and CD and with endoscopic disease activity in UC. UC and CD showed comparable areas under the curve (AUC) values for determining clinical remission and differentiating between endoscopic remission associated with LRG and CRP. The levels of LRG mRNA were also increased in PBMCs from patients with UC and CD and reflected disease activity. These data suggest that serum LRG, originated partially from PBMCs, is an inflammatory marker in UC and CD. A large-scale well-designed study should be conducted in the future to more accurately reveal the clinical significance of LRG in patients with IBD.
关于炎症性肠病（IBD），包括溃疡性结肠炎（UC）和克罗恩病（CD）的血清富含亮氨酸α-2 糖蛋白（LRG）的研究很少；评估疾病活动的方法也不太确定，特别是对于 CD。本研究旨在评估血清 LRG 作为 IBD 潜在炎症标志物的效用，并研究外周血单个核细胞（PBMCs）中 LRG 基因表达作为血清 LRG 的可能来源。总体而言，前瞻性纳入了 98 例 UC 患者和 96 例 CD 患者，并进行了临床评估；92 名年龄匹配的个体作为健康对照。分析了血液样本的血清 LRG 水平和常规实验室参数。通过临床和内镜评估疾病活动。最后，检查了来自不同队列的 PBMCs 中的 LRG 基因表达（41 例 UC 患者、34 例 CD 患者和 30 例健康对照）。活动期疾病的血清 LRG 水平高于非活动期疾病；此外，UC 和 CD 患者的血清 LRG 水平与临床疾病活动度、C 反应蛋白（CRP）水平和其他实验室参数呈正相关，与 UC 的内镜疾病活动度也呈正相关。LRG 和 CRP 用于确定 UC 临床缓解和区分内镜缓解的曲线下面积（AUC）值相当。UC 和 CD 患者的 PBMCs 中 LRG mRNA 水平也升高，反映了疾病的活动度。这些数据表明，血清 LRG 部分来源于 PBMCs，是 UC 和 CD 中的炎症标志物。未来应进行大规模精心设计的研究，以更准确地揭示 LRG 在 IBD 患者中的临床意义。
