Abstract
Background
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with an unclear etiology and pathophysiology. Previous studies have indicated that the dysregulation of cytokines may be involved in the pathogenesis of ASD and that the levels of cytokines may serve as potential biomarkers of this disorder.
Methods
The current study employed a family triad-based case–control design to study the levels of plasma cytokines in families with ASD (n = 45 triads) and controls (n = 38 triads) with a Human Cytokine Twenty-Five-Plex Kit. The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) was used to measure social impairment of ASD children.
Results
After controlling for the levels of parental cytokines, we identified that interferon-α (IFN-α), interleukin-7 (IL-7), IL-8, IFN-γ-inducible protein-10, and macrophage inflammatory protein-1β were associated with ASD, and IL-8 was the only cytokine also associated with the levels of both parental cytokines in the offspring–parents regression analysis and three subdomains of SRS (social awareness, cognition, and motivations) in the children with ASD. The receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the log-transformed IL-8 level discriminated children with autism from controls with an area under the curve of 0.858 (95% confidence interval: 0.777–0.939).
Conclusions
Our study suggests that IL-8 is a potential biomarker for ASD and may be involved in the pathogenesis of ASD.
IMPACT
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The study suggests that IL-8 is a promising biomarker for ASD and may be involved in the pathogenesis of ASD.
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Only a very few studies have reported the parental cytokine levels. The significant strength of this article is that we applied the family triad-based approach to explore cytokine levels in families with autism and controls.
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There are no objective biomarkers, making the accurate diagnosis, prognostic prediction and effective treatment difficult, and our study provides promising results.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank all subjects who participated in this study. This study was supported by funding from The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.: 81901388, 81974217, 81601197, and 81873806), the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program, No. 2012CB517901), and the Humanity and Social Sciences Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No: 17YJC190022).
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J.O., Y.S., Y.L., F.Z., and J.Z. designed the study. J.O., Y.S., M.L., and F.Z. performed the analyses and wrote the draft of this manuscript. Y.S., J.O., Y.L., L.S., M.L., R.W., K.X., and J.Z. managed the data collection and contributed to the data input. All authors contributed to the editing of the manuscript and agreed with the final text.
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The ethics committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University approved this study, and the parents provided written informed consent for all children.
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Shen, Y., Li, Y., Shi, L. et al. Autism spectrum disorder and severe social impairment associated with elevated plasma interleukin-8. Pediatr Res 89, 591–597 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-020-0910-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-020-0910-x
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