Inflammatory related plasma proteins involved in acute preschool wheeze

BACKGROUND: Preschool wheeze is a risk factor for asthma development.

However, the molecular mechanism behind a wheezing episode is not well understood.

OBJECTIVE: Our aims were to assess the association of plasma proteins with acute preschool wheeze and to study the proteins with differential expression at the acute phase at revisit after 3 months.

Additionally, to investigate the relationship between protein expression and clinical parameters.

METHOD: We measured 92 inflammatory proteins in plasma and clinical parameters from 145 children during an episode of preschool wheeze (PW) and at the revisit after 3 months (PW‐R, n = 113/145) and 101 healthy controls (HC) aged 6–48 months in the GEWAC cohort using the antibody‐mediated proximity extension‐based assay (Olink Proteomics, Uppsala).

RESULTS: Of the 74 analysed proteins, 52 were differentially expressed between PW and HC.

The expression profiles of the top 10 proteins, Oncostatin M (OSM), IL‐10, IL‐6, Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), AXIN1, CXCL10, SIRT2, TNFSF11, Tumour necrosis factor β (TNF‐β) and CASP8, could almost entirely separate PW from HC.

Five out of 10 proteins were associated with intake of oral corticosteroids (OCS) 24 h preceding blood sampling (OSM, CASP8, IL‐10, TNF‐β and CXCL10).

No differences in protein expression were seen between PWs with or without OCS in comparison to HC.

At the revisit after 3 months, differential protein expressions were still seen between PW‐R and HC for three (IL‐10, SIRT2 and FGF21) of the 10 proteins.

CONCLUSION: Our results contribute to unravelling potential immunopathological pathways shared between preschool wheeze and asthma.