Serum IL-8 and VEGFA are Two Promising Diagnostic Biomarkers of Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrome

• Main Authors: Ding Q, Sun S, Zhang Y, Tang P, Lv C, Ma H, Yu Y, Xu S, Deng Z
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dove Medical Press 2020-02-01
• Series: International Journal of COPD
• Subjects: asthma; acos; biomarker; il-8; vegf-a
• Online Access: https://www.dovepress.com/serum-il-8-and-vegfa-are-two-promising-diagnostic-biomarkers-of-asthma-peer-reviewed-article-COPD

Qunli Ding,1 Shifang Sun,1 Yun Zhang,1 Pan Tang,1 Chengna Lv,1 Hongying Ma,1 Yiming Yu,1 Suling Xu,2 Zaichun Deng1 1Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University, Ningbo, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Dermatology, The Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University, Ningbo, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Zaichun DengDepartment of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University, No. 247, Renmin Road, Jiangbei District, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, People’s Republic of ChinaTel/Fax [phone]Email [e-mail]: Asthma-COPD overlap (ACO; previously referred to as asthma-COPD overlap syndrome) is characterized by persistent airflow limitation consistent with COPD, together with several distinguishing features of asthma. Asthma-COPD overlap syndrome is a condition of mixing symptoms of asthma and COPD, because of its complexity, it is difficult to find effective diagnostic markers in clinic.Purpose: Our aims were to detect the expression of serum cytokines in patients with asthma, explore the diagnostic potential of differential serum cytokines in ACOS.Patients and Methods: Ninety asthmatic patients were divided into ACOS group and non-ACOS group according to the major and minor criteria of ACOS, 15 kinds of cytokines including IL-3, IL-4, IL-8, IL-9, IL-13, IL-17A, VEGFA, VEGFC, VEGFD, bFGF, Fit-1 PIGF, Tie-2 were detected by MSD, and IL-27 and TGF-beta were determined by ELISA assay.Results: The serum levels of IL-9, VEGFA and PIGF in patients with ACOS were significantly higher than those in non-ACOS group (P< 0.05, respectively), while the level of IL-8 and IL-17A in subjects with ACOS was lower than that in the non-ACOS group (P< 0.05, respectively). We analyzed the correlation between several difference factors and FEV1/FVC% in the ACOS group, found VEGFA was negatively correlated with FEV1/FVC%, while IL-8 and IL-17A were positively correlated with FEV1/FVC%. Finally, three correlation factors were analyzed by ROC curve for the occurrence of ACOS.Conclusion: The results suggested that IL-8 was highly sensitive and VEGFA was highly specificity, both of which could be used as biomarkers for the diagnosis of ACOS.Keywords: asthma, ACOS, biomarker, IL-8, VEGF-A