Plasma levels of soluble ST2, but not IL ‐33, correlate with the severity of alcoholic liver disease

AbstractAlcoholic liver disease (ALD) is a complication that is a burden on global health and economy. Interleukin ‐33 (IL‐33) is a newly identified member of the IL‐1 cytokine family and is released as an “alarmin” during inflammation. Soluble suppression of tumourigenicity 2 (sST2), an IL‐33 decoy receptor, has been reported as a new biomarker for the severity of systemic and highly inflammatory di seases. Here, we found the levels of plasma sST2, increased with the disease severity from mild to severe ALD. Importantly, the plasma sST2 levels in ALD patients not only correlated with scores for prognostic models (Maddrey's discriminant function, model for end‐stage liver disease and Child‐P ugh scores) and indexes for liver function (total bilirubin, international normalized ratio, albumin, and cholinesterase) but also correlated with neutrophil‐associated factors as well as some proinflammatory cytokines. In vitro, lipopolysaccharide‐activated monocytes down‐regulated transmembr ane ST2 receptor but up‐regulated sST2 mRNA and protein expression and produced higher levels of tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α). By contrast, monocytes pretreated with recombinant sST2 showed decreased TNF‐α production. In addition, although plasma IL‐33 levels were comparable between healthy controls and ALD patients, we found the IL‐33 expression in liver tissues from ALD patients was down‐regulated at both RNA and protein levels. Immunohistochemical staini...
Source: Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine - Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research