Are thermogenic proteins and adipokine chemerin affected by monoclonal antibody therapy in asthma?

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Irisin is a thermogenic protein that sources outgoing energy by converting whiteadipose tissue to brown adipose tissue. Chemerin is originally identified as a chemoattractantprotein that mainly mediating the chemotaxis of dendritic cells and natural killer cells (NKCs). Theaim of this study is to assess the potential impact of immune modulation‑related chemerin andirisin concentrations together with cell surface markers (CSM) in allergic asthmatic patients underomalizumab treatment.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study participants were age‑ and sex‑matched 30 healthycontrols (Group I) and consecutive patients who had severe persistent asthma disease (Group II).Asthma patients took omalizumab treatment for 12 months within every 2 weeks. Flow cytometryanalysis was used to evaluate CSM, enzyme‑linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) forinterleukin‑1 (IL‑1) β expression. In addition, NK activity (NKA) and induced cytokine expression (bybioassay and ELISA, respectively) before and after omalizumab therapy were evaluated.RESULTS: Chemerin, irisin, and IL‑1 β concentrations were significantly higher in severe persistentasthma patients compared to controls in serum (P = 0.01; P = 0.03; and P = 0.008, respectively).IL‑1 β level decreased with treatment and it was statistically significant. Although levels decreased,no statistically significant difference was observed for Irisin, CD80, and CD56/16 levels. Chemerinlevel kept rising after treatment, and this was significant statistically.CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to assess NKA and adipokines in asthma patients and theirrelationship with CSM. We observed that the level of these molecules is higher in asthma and isinfluenced by omalizumab treatment. Since no obvious change was observed for NKCs, omalizumabmay be considered safe against cancer development.