The clinical significance of lnc-DC in plasma for the diagnosis of primary Sjögren′s syndrome

Abstract

Objective To explore the long non-coding RNA that ineract within dentridic cell (lnc-DC) in plasma as a novel bio-marker for primary Sjogrens syndrome (pSS). Methods Case-control study. One hundred and thirty-nine patients of pSS,50 patients of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and 50 patients of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were collected from Xuzhou Central Hospital from January 2017 to January 2018, and 78 healthy individuals were designed as healthy control. The plasma lnc-DC of pSS, SLE and RA patients and healthy control (HC) was determined by real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The plasma levels of anti-SSA(anti-Sjogren′s syndrome type A) and anti-SSB(anti-Sjogren′s syndrome type B) were tested by ELISA. The correlation between lnc-DC and dry mouth, dry eyes, ESR,β2-microglobulin, anti-SSA and anti-SSB of pSS patients were analyzed by Spearman′s rank correlation test. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to identify the diagnostic performance of plasma lnc-DC for pSS. Results Compared to healthy control (3.38±0.44), the lnc-DC relative expression (6.82±0.51) was significantly increased in pSS patients (t=4.78, P<0.01) .The lnc-DC had a strong positive correlation with dry mouth (r=0.81, P<0.01) , dry eyes (r=0.75, P<0.01) , ESR (r=0.73, P<0.01) , β2-microglobulin (r=0.63, P<0.01) , anti-SSA (r=0.45, P<0.01) and anti-SSB (r=0.53, P<0.01) .The area under curve (AUC) of plasma of lnc-DC was 0.81, (95% CI: 0.71-0.90). When combination lnc-DC with anti-SSA and anti-SSB, the AUC is 0.86 (95%CI:0.78-0.94). At the optimal cut-off of 5.1, the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were 0.73(95%CI: 0.60-0.84) and 0.82 (0.66-0.92). And in this point may provided better diagnostic accuracy. Meanwhile, compared with SLE and RA patients, the plasma level of lnc-DC were higher, ROC curves of lnc-DC in pSS patients can distinguish pSS from other autoimmune disease such as SLE and RA. Conclusions Plasma lnc-DC can provide additional diagnostic information beyond other clinican characteristics such as dry mouth,dry eyes,ESR,β2-microglobulin,anti-SSA and anti-SSB. It can be used as a novel bio-marker for pSS patients, and also have significant values in diagnosis of pSS. Key words: Sjogren′s syndrome; RNA, long noncoding; Biomarkers; Sensitivity and specificity