Presenter of 1 Presentation
O033 - AUTOANTIBODIES SPECIFIC FOR FIBROSIS-RELATED PROTEINS AS CANDIDATE BIOMARKERS IN SYSTEMIC SCLEROSIS (ID 391)
Abstract
Background and Aims
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a rare autoimmune systemic disease. SSc leads to decreased quality of life and survival due to skin and/ or vital organ pathology caused by fibrosis, inflammation, and vascular damage. Early diagnosis is crucial for clinical benefit in SSc patients. Our study aimed to identify new autoantibodies in plasma of SSc patients that could serve as early biomarkers of fibrosis in SSc.
Methods
Initially, a proteome-wide screening was performed on sample pools from SSc patients by untargeted autoantibody screening on planar antigen array (including 42000 antigens representing 18000 unique proteins). A targeted antigen bead array was then generated with protein fragments representing the selected proteins from the planar array and used to screen 55 SSc plasma samples and 52 matched controls. The selection was complemented with proteins reported in the literature in the context of SSc.
Results
Our preliminary results showed eight fibrosis-associated autoantibodies increased in SSc patients compared to controls. Furthermore, two of these autoantibodies, against Phosphatidylinositol-5-phosphate 4-kinase type 2 beta (PIP42K2B) and AKT Serine/Threonine Kinase 3 (AKT3), might serve as new candidate biomarkers for fibrosis in SSc patients in the future.
Conclusions
Further studies in larger cohorts are needed to validate our preliminary results.