Supti Kaniz Farzana, Asaduzzaman Md, Suhee Farhana Islam, Shahriar Mohammad, Islam Sardar Mohammad Ashraful, Bhuiyan Mohiuddin Ahmed, Qusar Mma Shalahuddin, Islam Md Rabiul
Department of Pharmacy, University of Asia Pacific, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Department of Psychiatry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Shahbagh, Ramna, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Clin Pathol. 2023 Dec 23;16:2632010X231220841. doi: 10.1177/2632010X231220841. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.
Previous studies have suggested the involvement of an activated inflammatory process in major depressive disorder (MDD), as altered expression of inflammatory cytokines is observed in depression. This alteration can be the cause or a consequence of MDD. However, acknowledging inflammatory cytokines as prospective biomarkers would aid in diagnosing or guiding better therapeutic options. Therefore, we designed this study to assess the macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in depression.
We collected blood samples from 115 MDD patients and 113 healthy controls (HCs) matched by age and sex. MDD patients were diagnosed by a qualified psychiatrist based on the symptoms mentioned in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). We applied the Hamilton depression (Ham-D) rating scale to assess the severity of depression. We assessed serum levels of MIF using ELISA kit (Boster Bio, USA).
We detected increased serum MIF levels in MDD patients compared to HCs (6.15 ± 0.23 ng/mL vs 3.95 ± 0.21 ng/mL, < 0.001). Moreover, this increase is more among female patients than female controls. Also, we noticed a positive correlation between altered MIF levels and the Ham-D scores ( = 0.233; = 0.012), where we found that patients who scored higher on the Ham-D scale had higher MIF levels in serum. Moreover, the area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve represented the good diagnostic performance of altered serum MIF.
Our study findings indicate the association of pro-inflammatory cytokine MIF in the pathophysiology of depression as we identified elevated serum MIF levels in depressive patients compared to HCs. However, more researches are required to confirm whether this alteration of cytokine is the causative factor or a consequence of depression. We recommend conducting further studies to understand the pattern of this alteration of MIF levels in MDD patients.
先前的研究表明，激活的炎症过程参与了重度抑郁症（MDD），因为在抑郁症中观察到炎症细胞因子的表达发生了改变。这种改变可能是MDD的原因或结果。然而，将炎症细胞因子作为潜在的生物标志物有助于诊断或指导更好的治疗选择。因此，我们设计了这项研究来评估抑郁症中的巨噬细胞迁移抑制因子（MIF）。
我们从115名MDD患者和113名年龄和性别匹配的健康对照（HCs）中采集了血液样本。MDD患者由合格的精神科医生根据《精神障碍诊断与统计手册》（DSM-5）中提到的症状进行诊断。我们应用汉密尔顿抑郁（Ham-D）评定量表来评估抑郁的严重程度。我们使用ELISA试剂盒（美国博斯特生物）评估血清MIF水平。
与HCs相比，我们检测到MDD患者血清MIF水平升高（6.15±0.23 ng/mL对3.95±0.21 ng/mL，P<0.001）。此外，女性患者的这种升高比女性对照更明显。此外，我们注意到MIF水平的改变与Ham-D评分之间存在正相关（r=0.233；P=0.012），我们发现Ham-D量表得分较高的患者血清MIF水平较高。此外，受试者操作特征（ROC）曲线的曲线下面积（AUC）表明血清MIF改变具有良好的诊断性能。
我们的研究结果表明，促炎细胞因子MIF与抑郁症的病理生理学相关，因为我们发现与HCs相比，抑郁症患者血清MIF水平升高。然而，需要更多的研究来证实这种细胞因子的改变是抑郁症的致病因素还是结果。我们建议进行进一步的研究，以了解MDD患者中MIF水平这种改变的模式。
