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. 2021 Apr 21;14(5):394.
doi: 10.3390/ph14050394.

Role of Osteopontin as a Potential Biomarker of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis and Other Connective Tissue Diseases (CTDs)

Mattia Bellan  1   2   3 , Cristina Piccinino  2 , Stelvio Tonello  1 , Rosalba Minisini  1 , Ailia Giubertoni  1 , Daniele Sola  2 , Roberta Pedrazzoli  2 , Ileana Gagliardi  1 , Erika Zecca  1 , Elisa Calzaducca  1 , Federica Mazzoleni  1 , Roberto Piffero  1 , Giuseppe Patti  1   2 , Mario Pirisi  1   2   3 , Pier Paolo Sainaghi  1   2   3
Affiliations

Role of Osteopontin as a Potential Biomarker of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis and Other Connective Tissue Diseases (CTDs)

Mattia Bellan et al. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). .

Abstract

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a severe complication of connective tissue diseases (CTD). Its early diagnosis is essential to start effective treatment. In the present paper, we aimed to evaluate the role of plasma osteopontin (OPN) as a candidate biomarker of PAH in a cohort of CTD patients. OPN is a pleiotropic protein involved in inflammation and fibrogenesis and, therefore, potentially promising in this specific clinical context. We performed a cross-sectional observational study on a cohort of 113 CTD patients (females N = 101, 89.4%) affected by systemic sclerosis N = 88 (77.9%), mixed connective tissue disease N = 10 (8.8%), overlap syndrome N = 10 (8.8%) or undifferentiated connective tissue disease N = 5 (4.4%). CTD-PAH patients showed significantly higher OPN plasma values than patients with CTD alone (241.0 (188.8-387.2) vs. 200.7 (133.5-281.6) ng/mL; p = 0.03). Although OPN levels were directly correlated with age and inversely with glomerular filtration rate, they remained associated with PAH at multivariate analysis. In conclusion, OPN was significantly associated with PAH among patients with CTD, suggesting it may have a role as a non-invasive disease biomarker of PAH.

Keywords: connective tissue diseases; osteopontin; pulmonary arterial hypertension; systemic sclerosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Plasma osteopontin (OPN) levels in CTD and CTD-associated pulmonary arterial hypertension (CTD-PAH) patients. As shown in the figure, CTD-PAH patients showed higher OPN plasma levels.
Figure 2
Figure 2
OPN ROC curve. Abbreviations: ROC—receiver operating characteristic; OPN—osteopontin; AUC—area under the curve.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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