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. 2022 Feb 19:15:1173-1181.
doi: 10.2147/JIR.S350281. eCollection 2022.

Association of Growth and Differentiation Factor 15 in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Yan-Wei He  1 , Cheng-Song He  2
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Association of Growth and Differentiation Factor 15 in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Yan-Wei He et al. J Inflamm Res. .
Free PMC article

Abstract

Purpose: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory rheumatic disease, which has been demonstrated to correlate with mutated genetics. Growth and differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) is a member of the transforming growth factor-β superfamily and is expressed in different organs, tissues and immune cells. To date, limited studies have evaluated plasma levels of GDF-15 in RA patients, and whether GDF-15 gene polymorphisms correlate with RA risk in the Chinese Han population has not been clarified.

Patients and methods: This case-control study recruited 910 age- and sex-matched RA patients and healthy controls. Plasma levels of GDF-15 were examined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, and polymorphisms (rs1055150, rs1058587, rs3787023, and rs4808793) were genotyped by KASP method.

Results: RA patients had higher levels of GDF-15 as compared to that in healthy controls. Patients with positive CRP also showed higher levels of GDF-15 when compared to that in patients with negative CRP. Levels of GDF-15 correlated with disease activity score. Frequencies of GG, GC, GG+GC genotypes and G allele in GDF-15 gene rs1058587 were significantly elevated in RA patients compared to controls. Frequencies of CC genotype and C allele in GDF-15 gene rs3787023 were higher in RA patients compared to controls. Other polymorphisms did not correlate with RA susceptibility. Moreover, the four polymorphisms were not correlated with levels of GDF-15.

Conclusion: Plasma levels of GDF-15 were elevated in RA patients and GDF-15 gene polymorphisms were related to RA risk in the Chinese Han population.

Keywords: growth and differentiation factor 15; pathogenesis; polymorphism; rheumatoid arthritis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Plasma levels of GDF-15 in RA patients. Plasma levels of GDF-15 were tested by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay in 80 RA patients and 80 healthy controls. Differences of plasma levels of GDF-15 were compared between patients and controls. The association of plasma levels of GDF-15 in RA patients with positive, negative CRP, or with early disease, long disease was discussed. Correlation analysis of plasma levels of GDF-15 with disease activity score was conducted by Spearman’s test. A receiver operating characteristic curve evaluated the potential of plasma GDF-15 as the disease marker. Comparison between two groups of data was analyzed by Wilcoxon rank-sum test.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Association of GDF-15 gene polymorphisms with plasma levels of GDF-15. Eighty RA patients examined plasma levels of GDF-15, and the patients tested GDF-15 gene polymorphisms (rs1055150, rs1058587, rs3787023 and rs4808793) as well. The potential effect of polymorphisms on plasma levels of GDF-15 was evaluated by comparing plasma levels of GDF-15 among three different genotypes, including GG, GC, and CC genotypes for rs1055150, rs1058587, and rs4808793 and CC, CT, and TT genotypes for rs3787023. Three groups of data were discussed according to Kruskal–Wallis test.
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Grants and funding

The study was supported by Program of Sichuan Provincial Science and Technology-Luzhou Municipal People’s Government-Luzhou Medical College (201410074).