Increased Levels of VCAM-1 in Sera and VLA-4 Expression on Neutrophils in Dermatomyositis with Interstitial Lung Disease

ABSTRACT

Vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) and its ligand very late antigen (VLA-4) play important roles in many autoimmune diseases. Our study aimed to investigate the serum level of VCAM-1 and VLA-4 expression on peripheral blood neutrophil surface in patients with dermatomyositis (DM), especially focusing on patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD). Blood specimens of 42 patients with DM and 42 healthy controls matched for age and gender were recruited. Total serum VCAM-1 level was measured using commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and the percentages of VLA-4 expression on neutrophils were analyzed by flow cytometry. We divided patients into subgroups according to whether they had ILD and whether they exhibited diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) via high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). sVCAM-1 was increased in classical DM (cDM) and clinical amyopathic dermatomyositis (CADM) compared with healthy controls (both p < .01). DM-ILD had higher sVCAM-1 levels than the none-ILD group (p < .01). sVCAM-1 was also significantly increased in the DAD group compared to the none-DAD group (p < .01). The percentages of VLA-4 expression on neutrophils in cDM and CADM patients were significantly elevated than that in healthy controls (both p < .01). The percentage of VLA-4 expression on neutrophils in DM patients with ILD was higher than none-ILD group (p < .01). In the patients with ILD, DAD group had a higher percentage of VLA-4 expression on neutrophils than none-DAD group (p < .01). Our findings indicated that serum VCAM-1 levels combined with VLA-4 expression on neutrophils might be useful for detecting the severity of lung disease in patients with DM.

KEYWORDS:

• VCAM-1
• VLA-4
• dermatomyositis
• interstitial lung disease

Authors’ contributions

ML, CY and PY conceived the design of the study, literature search, data analysis and manuscript review. ML and CY carried out the experiments, statistical analysis and manuscript preparation. XL and BT evaluated pulmonary involvements via HRCT and pulmonary function test. SZ, XH and JX provided assistance for clinical data acquisition, data analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the following grants: foundation from clinical medical research center of Shenyang, Liaoning, China [18009-4-03 to PT.Y.], the Program of the Distinguished Professor of Liaoning Province, Rheumatology [28020, Pingting Yang].