PLoS ONE (Jan 2020)

Association of soluble T cell immunoglobulin domain and mucin-3 (sTIM-3) and mac-2 binding protein glycosylation isomer (M2BPGi) in patients with autoimmune hepatitis.

  • Kiyoshi Migita,
  • Minoru Nakamura,
  • Yoshihiro Aiba,
  • Hideko Kozuru,
  • Seigo Abiru,
  • Atsumasa Komori,
  • Yuya Fujita,
  • Junpei Temmoku,
  • Tomoyuki Asano,
  • Shuzo Sato,
  • Makiko Furuya,
  • Atsushi Naganuma,
  • Kaname Yoshizawa,
  • Masaaki Shimada,
  • Keisuke Ario,
  • Tomohiko Mannami,
  • Hiroshi Kohno,
  • Toshihiko Kaneyoshi,
  • Takuya Komura,
  • Hiromasa Ohira,
  • Hiroshi Yatsuhashi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238540
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 12
p. e0238540

Abstract

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BackgroundAutoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a disorder of unknown etiology in which immune-mediated liver injury progress to cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of the present study was to determine whether circulating soluble TIM3 (sTIM3) is elevated in patients with AIH patients and whether sTIM-3 levels are associated with clinical parameters of AIH.MethodsWe enrolled 123 Japanese patients with AIH who were identified from the National Hospital Organization-AIH-liver-network database, as well as 32 patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC), 30 patients with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and healthy control subjects. Serum sTIM-3 concentrations were quantified by ELISA.ResultsSerum levels of sTIM-3 were significantly higher in AIH patients (median 4865 pg/ml; [interquartile range (IQR); 3122-7471]) compared to those in CHC (1026 pg/ml [IQR: 806-1283] pConclusionsCirculating sTIM-3 levels were elevated in AIH patients and are associated with AIH disease activity and AIH-related liver damage. These findings indicate that serum sTIM-3 correlated with disease status of AIH and could be useful biomarkers to detect autoimmune-mediated liver injury. Our data suggest a possible link between the TIM-3/GAL-9 pathway and AIH severity or phenotype, and further investigations of the TIM-3 pathway and AIH pathophysiology is warranted.