Decreased Circulating Levels of APRIL: Questioning Its Role in Diabetes

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that affects over 382 million people worldwide. Type-1 Diabetes (T1D) is classified as an autoimmune disease that results from pancreatic β-cell destruction and insulin deficiency. Type-2 Diabetes (T2D) is characterized principally by insulin resistance in target tissues followed by decreased insulin production due to β-cell failure. It is challenging to identify immunological markers such as inflammatory molecules that are triggered in response to changes during the pathogenesis of diabetes. APRIL is an important member of the TNF family and has been linked to chronic inflammatory processes of various diseases since its discovery in 1998. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate APRIL serum levels in T1D and T2D. For this, we used the ELISA assay to measure serum APRIL levels of 33 T1D and 30 T2D patients, and non-diabetic subjects as control group. Our data showed a decrease in serum APRIL levels in T1D patients when compared with healthy individuals. The same pattern was observed in the group of T2D patients when compared with the control. The decrease of serum APRIL levels in diabetic patients suggests that this cytokine has a role in T1D and T2D. Diabetes is already considered as an inflammatory condition with different cytokines being implicated in its physiopathology. Our data suggest that APRIL can be considered as a potential modulating cytokine in the inflammatory process of diabetes.

Current Concepts in Endocrinology for Clinicians and Medical Students. Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis: clinical and subclinical thyroid dysfunction

“…These proinflammatory cytokines increase the immunogenicity of antigenic structures in thyroid gland and similar tissues, which results in increased levels of IL-4, IL-5 and B lymphocytes (Zeppa P, 2006;Brenta G, 2013;Mikos H, 2014;Shen P, 2014;Pyzik A, 2015). Studies indicate that tumor necrosis factors alpha (TNF-alpha), superfamily cytokines such as B cell activation factor (BAFF; also known as BlyS) and a proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL) are another important cytokines which can be involved in the establishment and/or maintenance of autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), diabetes and HT (Tan SM, 2003;Morel J, 2009;Fabris M, 2010;Vincent FB, 2014;Carvalho-Santos, 2015;Pinna, RA, 2018).…”

Anti-inflammatory role of APRIL by modulating regulatory B cells in antigen-induced arthritis

“…Furthermore, APRIL is also able to interact with heparin sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) [ 10 , 13 – 15 ]. APRIL has been related to different autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE); rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and diabetes [ 16 – 20 ].…”