Mai Jia, Wang Min, Guo Ying, Yang Ling, Xie HongJian, Mei Lan, Zhu ZiYao, Liu XiaoJuan
Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Second University Hospital, Sichuan University; Key Laboratory of Birth Defects and Related Diseases of Women and Children (Sichuan University), Ministry of Education, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Front Immunol. 2025 May 30;16:1606375. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1606375. eCollection 2025.
Obesity is marked by chronic inflammation, with research showing notable changes in cytokines. However, systematic investigations into cytokine level changes are still lacking. This study compared the concentrations of various cytokines in the peripheral blood of healthy controls and obese children.
Peripheral blood samples from test cohort including 5 healthy children and 5 obesity children were used to evaluate concentration levels of 48 inflammatory cytokines by Bio-Plex assay. Diet-induced obese (DIO) mice used to assess whether there were significant differences in the expression of MIP-1b, PDGF-BB. Peripheral blood samples from validation cohort including 44 healthy children and 44 obesity children were used to evaluate concentration levels of MIP-1b, PDGF-BB, IP-10, IL-6, IL-9 and TNF-β.
In the Bio-Plex assay, there were significant differences in MIP-1b and PDGF-BB levels between healthy and obesity children. Additionally, IP-10, IL-6, IL-9, and TNF-β exhibited a trend of difference between the two groups. However, no significant differences in MIP-1b and PDGF-BB levels were observed between control and DIO mice. Notably, we found that IL-6 exhibited a significant concentration difference between the serum of healthy and obesity children, suggesting the IL-6 may play a key role in the inflammatory response associated with obesity.
In summary, our study emphasizes the importance of IL-6 and other cytokines in childhood obesity research and suggests that future investigations should further explore the specific roles of these cytokines in the pathophysiological states associated with obesity, aiming to provide new strategies for the prevention and treatment of obesity.
肥胖的特征是慢性炎症，研究表明细胞因子存在显著变化。然而，对细胞因子水平变化的系统研究仍然缺乏。本研究比较了健康对照儿童和肥胖儿童外周血中各种细胞因子的浓度。
来自测试队列的外周血样本，包括5名健康儿童和5名肥胖儿童，用于通过生物芯片检测评估48种炎性细胞因子的浓度水平。饮食诱导肥胖（DIO）小鼠用于评估MIP-1b、PDGF-BB的表达是否存在显著差异。来自验证队列的外周血样本，包括44名健康儿童和44名肥胖儿童，用于评估MIP-1b、PDGF-BB、IP-10、IL-6、IL-9和TNF-β的浓度水平。
在生物芯片检测中，健康儿童和肥胖儿童的MIP-1b和PDGF-BB水平存在显著差异。此外，IP-10、IL-6、IL-9和TNF-β在两组之间呈现出差异趋势。然而，在对照小鼠和DIO小鼠之间未观察到MIP-1b和PDGF-BB水平的显著差异。值得注意的是，我们发现健康儿童和肥胖儿童血清中的IL-6存在显著浓度差异，这表明IL-6可能在与肥胖相关的炎症反应中起关键作用。
总之，我们的研究强调了IL-6和其他细胞因子在儿童肥胖研究中的重要性，并表明未来的研究应进一步探索这些细胞因子在与肥胖相关的病理生理状态中的具体作用，旨在为肥胖的预防和治疗提供新策略。
