Application of plasma alternative to serum for measuring leucine-rich α2-glycoprotein as a biomarker of inflammatory bowel disease

Tadashi Ichimiya; Tomoe Kazama; Keisuke Ishigami; Yoshihiro Yokoyama; Yuki Hayashi; Satoshi Takahashi; Takao Itoi; Hiroshi Nakase

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0286415

Application of plasma alternative to serum for measuring leucine-rich α2-glycoprotein as a biomarker of inflammatory bowel disease

PLoS One. 2023 Jun 23;18(6):e0286415. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0286415. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tadashi Ichimiya¹, Tomoe Kazama¹, Keisuke Ishigami¹, Yoshihiro Yokoyama¹, Yuki Hayashi¹, Satoshi Takahashi², Takao Itoi³, Hiroshi Nakase¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.
² Department of Infection Control and Laboratory Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.
³ Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic intestinal disorder characterized by recurrent flare-ups and remission. Leucine-rich α2-glycoprotein (LRG) has been developed as a new serum biomarker of disease activity in patients with IBD. However, there have been no reports on whether plasma LRG can be used as an alternative to serum LRG. Therefore, in this retrospective study, we evaluated the usefulness of plasma LRG compared to serum LRG.

Methods: We conducted a single-center retrospective observational study. A total of 108 IBD patients (ulcerative colitis [UC], 56; Crohn's disease [CD], 52) who received treatment at Sapporo Medical University Hospital between August 2020 and September 2021 were enrolled. Serum and plasma LRG levels were measured using the NANOPIA LRG kit. Disease activity was assessed using the Crohn's Disease Activity Index (CDAI) for CD and partial Mayo (pMayo) score for UC. Endoscopic activity was evaluated using the Mayo Endoscopic Subscore (MES) and Ulcerative Colitis Endoscopic Index of Severity (UCEIS) in patients with UC and the Simple Endoscopic Score for Crohn's Disease (SES-CD) score in patients with CD.

Results: Serum LRG levels significantly correlated with plasma LRG levels (r = 0.990, p<0.0001). Plasma LRG levels were significantly associated with SES-CD (r = 0.992, p<0.0001), indicating that plasma LRG levels may predict endoscopic activity in CD. In UC patients, the cutoff values of plasma LRG for remission were 12.7 μg/mL for MES ≤1 and 10.0 μg/mL for UCEIS of = 0.

Conclusion: The present study showed that plasma LRG levels correlate well with serum LRG levels. Therefore, plasma LRG can be clinically applied as a biomarker for assessing endoscopic disease activity in patients with IBD.

Copyright: © 2023 Ichimiya et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Observational Study
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Biomarkers
Colitis, Ulcerative* / diagnosis
Colonoscopy
Crohn Disease* / diagnosis
Glycoproteins
Humans
Inflammatory Bowel Diseases* / diagnosis
Leucine
Retrospective Studies
Severity of Illness Index

Substances

Leucine
Biomarkers
Glycoproteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Health and Labour Sciences Research Grants for research on intractable diseases from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) of Japan (Investigation and Research for intractable Inflammatory Bowel Disease) (Grant Number 20FC1037). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.