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BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders
Published in: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research article

Differential expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-15Ralpha, IL-15, IL-6 and TNFalpha in synovial fluid from Rheumatoid arthritis patients

Authors: Alicia Santos Savio, Ana Cecilia Machado Diaz, Araceli Chico Capote, Jamilet Miranda Navarro, Yunier Rodríguez Alvarez, Ricardo Bringas Pérez, Miguel Estévez del Toro, Gerardo E Guillen Nieto

Published in: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Background

Pro-inflammatory cytokines are directly implicated in the pathogenesis of Rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Variable clinical response to cytokine targeted therapies as TNFalpha and IL-6, strongly highlights the heterogeneity of inflammatory process in RA. Another cytokine, IL-15 has also been related to the inflammatory process in RA. Recently we described for the first time, the presence of its specific receptor, IL-15Ralpha, in synovial fluid (SF). The aim of this work was to compare the expression profile of IL-15Ralpha, its ligand IL-15, TNFalpha and IL-6 and how these cytokines are correlated in SF from RA patients taking as a reference Osteoarthritis (OA), an articular but not autoinmmune disease.

Methods

Synovial fluids were obtained from the knee joints of 60 patients, 30 with confirmed diagnosis of RA and 30 with OA diagnosis. The levels of TNFalpha, IL-6, IL-15 and IL-15Ralpha were measured by ELISA. A statistical analysis was performed with GraphPad Prism v5.0 using the Mann–Whitney U test and Spearman’s rank correlation. A cluster analysis was run in MeV software v4.9.0 and differences across clusters were evaluated by an ANOVA including post-test analysis.

Results

We found higher and significant levels of TNFalpha, IL-6 and IL-15Ralpha but not of IL-15 in RA compared with the OA group. Additionally, a high inter-individual variability in the levels of these 4 cytokines was observed in RA, although we identified 4 patients’ subgroups by cluster analysis of cytokines concentration in SF. We also found a positive correlation between IL-15Ralpha-IL-6 and IL-15Ralpha-IL-15, but not for other pairs of cytokines in RA. In addition we found correlation between the value of IL-15Ralpha in SF and disease activity score, DAS28.

Conclusions

In our current work we found a high inter-individual variability in the levels of TNFalpha, IL-6, IL-15 and IL-15Ralpha in SF of RA patients and were identified four principal clusters of cytokines concentration in SF, suggesting the importance of identifying disease subset of patients for personalized treatment. Finally, we found a correlation between IL-15Ralpha-IL-6, IL-15Ralpha-IL-15, but we did not find any correlation between other pairs of studied cytokines in SF.
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Metadata
Title
Differential expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-15Ralpha, IL-15, IL-6 and TNFalpha in synovial fluid from Rheumatoid arthritis patients
Authors
Alicia Santos Savio
Ana Cecilia Machado Diaz
Araceli Chico Capote
Jamilet Miranda Navarro
Yunier Rodríguez Alvarez
Ricardo Bringas Pérez
Miguel Estévez del Toro
Gerardo E Guillen Nieto
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2474
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-015-0516-3

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