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Fibulin-1: a novel biomarker for predicting disease activity of the thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy

Eye volume 37, pages 2216–2219 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Purpose

This study was designed to investigate the association between fibulin-1(FBLN1) and thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO).

Method

The plasma FBLN1 levels were measured in 80 participants, including 30 active TAO patients, 25 inactive TAO patients, and 25 Graves disease (GD) patients without TAO using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Results

TAO patients had significantly higher TRAb level than GD patients (p < 0.05). The active TAO patients consumed more tobacco and had higher CAS than inactive TAO patients (all p < 0.05). No significant differences were found in age, sex, and the level of FT3, FT4, and TSH between TAO and GD patients, and between the active and inactive TAO patients (all p > 0.05).

The plasma FBLN1 level in TAO patients was higher than that in GD patients, and that in active patients was higher than that in inactive patients (all p < 0.05). Furthermore, the plasma FBLN1 level showed strong association with clinical activity score (CAS) of TAO (r = 0.67, p < 0.01). By receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, FBLN1 demonstrated good efficiency for predicting disease activity at the cut-off value > 625.33 pg/ml with a sensitivity of 93.3% and a specificity of 88.0% (AUC:0.92, p < 0.01).

Conclusion

The plasma FBLN1 levels correlated with TAO activity and a value >625.33 pg/ml was associated with active disease. Our results suggest that the plasma FBLN1 level could be a novel biomarker for predicting disease activity of TAO.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This study is supported by Key projects of Chongqing Natural Science Foundation (NO:cstc2020jcyj-zdxmX0016).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Hong Hu, Xiaoya Zheng, Zhizhen Fu, Chun Liu & Jian Long

  2. Chongqing Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, and Chongqing Eye Institute, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Liang Liang

  3. Department of Endocrinology, Xinqiao Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Xin Jiang

Authors
  1. Hong Hu
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  2. Liang Liang
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  3. Xiaoya Zheng
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  4. Xin Jiang
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  5. Zhizhen Fu
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  6. Chun Liu
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  7. Jian Long
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Contributions

JL and CL contributed to the conception of the study. HH, XJ, and ZF performed the experiment. HH and JL performed the data analyses and wrote the paper. LL and XZ contributed to the diagnosis and assessment of TAO.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jian Long.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval

The research was conducted ethically following the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. The study was approved by the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University Ethical Committee.

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Supplementary information

41433_2022_2318_MOESM1_ESM.doc

Heatmap of the log2 Fold Change (logFC) of differential expression proteins in the plasma of TAO and GD group, through Tandem mass tag proteomics(TMT).

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Hu, H., Liang, L., Zheng, X. et al. Fibulin-1: a novel biomarker for predicting disease activity of the thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy. Eye 37, 2216–2219 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-022-02318-6

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