The study on the association of serum interleukin-27 levels with disease severity in neuromyelitis optica / 中国神经精神疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To examine the interleukin-27 (IL-27) levels in the serum of the patients with neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and healthy controls (HCs) and explore the correlation of the serum IL-27 level with disease severity.Methods Serum concentrations of IL-27 from 39 patients with NMO and 39 HCs were measured by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Mann-Whitney U test was performed to analyze the difference in the IL-27 levels between the NMO group and the HCs.Spearman's rank correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlations of serum IL-27 levels with clinical parameters (EDSS,spinal cord lesion length,annual relapse rate and antibody titers of AQP-4) of NMO.Results The serum IL-27 levels were significantly lower in NMO group than in HCs (P＜0.001).Serum IL-27 levels were negatively correlated with EDSS,total length of spinal cord lesion identified by MRI at the sampling,and the average relapse rate during two-year follow-up (r=-0.439,P=0.010;r=-0.434,P=0.006;r=-0.451,P=0.031).There was no significant correlation between IL-27 levels and antibody titers of AQP-4 (r=-0.027,P=0.871).Multivariate regression analysis showed that serum IL-27 levels were negatively correlated with EDSS (B=-0.025,P=0.023).Conclusion IL-27 may participate in the pathogenic process of NMO and might be a prognosis marker of the disease.