Soluble CD14 levels reflect liver inflammation in patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

Abstract

BACKGROUND AIMS:

Liver inflammation is a risk factor for the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the diagnosis of liver inflammation is very difficult and invasive liver biopsy is still the only method to reliably detect liver inflammation. We previously reported that overexpression of CD14 in Kupffer cells may trigger the progression to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) via liver inflammation following hyper-reactivity to low-dose lipopolysaccharide. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between soluble type of CD14 (sCD14) and histological features in patients with NAFLD.

METHODS:

Our cohort consisted of 113 patients with liver biopsy-confirmed NAFLD and 21 age-matched healthy controls. Serum sCD14 levels were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

RESULTS:

Serum sCD14 levels were significantly associated with diagnosis of NASH and the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUROC) to distinguish between not NASH and NASH was 0.802. Moreover, serum sCD14 levels were significantly associated with the disease activity based on NAFLD activity score and hepatic CD14 mRNA expression, which is correlated with membrane CD14 (mCD14) expression, in patients with NAFLD. In multiple regression analysis, the serum sCD14 levels were independently associated with liver inflammation. The AUROC to distinguish between mild and severe liver inflammation in patients with NAFLD was 0.752.

CONCLUSIONS:

We found that serum sCD14 levels increased significantly with increasing liver inflammation grade in patients with NAFLD, reflecting increased hepatic CD14 expression. Serum sCD14 is a promising tool to predict the worsening of liver inflammation, and may offer a potential biomarker for evaluation of therapeutic effects in NAFLD.

• Authors: Yuji Ogawa, Kento Imajo, Masato Yoneda, Takaomi Kessoku, Wataru Tomeno, Yoshiyasu Shinohara, Shingo Kato, Hironori Mawatari, Yuichi Nozaki, Koji Fujita, Hiroyuki Kirikoshi, Shin Maeda, Satoru Saito, Koichiro Wada, Atsushi Nakajima
• Journal: PloS one (PLoS One) Vol. 8 Issue 6 Pg. e65211 ( 2013) ISSN: 1932-6203 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 23762319 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Lipopolysaccharide Receptors
• Lipopolysaccharides

Topics

• Adult
• Animals
• Case-Control Studies
• Cell Line
• Fatty Liver (blood, pathology)
• Female
• Humans
• Inflammation (blood, pathology)
• Lipopolysaccharide Receptors (blood)
• Lipopolysaccharides (pharmacology)
• Liver (drug effects, metabolism, pathology)
• Male
• Mice
• Middle Aged
• Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
• ROC Curve
• Regression Analysis
• Solubility