Serum acidic mammalian kinase as a new laboratory test to define subclinical inflammation in Familial Mediterranean fever

Serum CHIA levels of Familial Mediterranean fever patients

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the relationship between acidic mammalian chitinase (CHIA) level and autoinflammatory diseases, especially in Familial Mediterranean fever.

Methods: We first analyzed CHIA expression, methylation in various autoinflammatory diseases, including, SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus), RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis), SJS (Stevens-Johnson syndrome), SSc (Systemic Sclerosis) and T1D (Type 1 diabetes) patients, case-control and correlation between the MEFV and CHIA genes by using bioinformatics tools. We then measured serum CHIA level in ninety individuals; thirty FMF attacks, thirty FMF remissions and thirty healthy control groups. Statistical analysis was used to evaluate the interaction between clinical parameters and serum CHIA level. The potential of serum CHIA level was tested using AUC and ROC analysis.

Results: According to our ADEx analysis, we observed high CHIA expression in SLE, RA and T1D patients than in the control group. Moreover, we detected that the methylation level decreased in each disease, especially in the cg17143643 and cg7497781 probes. We also observed a correlation between MEFV and CHIA in these autoinflammatory diseases. According to our ELISA results, we also showed an increased CHIA level in FMF attack and remission as compared to the control group in serum (p <0.001, p =0.007; resp). We further observed a relationship between CHIA level and patients with amyloidosis, attack per month, and neutrophil and WBC levels. 

Conclusion: Our primary data suggest that CHIA is related to FMF pathogenesis and can be followed in the subclinical period of the disease.