| Background and objectiveCoal workers’ pneumoconiosis was a kind of physiological changes featuresirreversible pulmonary fibrosis caused by long-term inhalation of industrialdust.Many scholars carried a variety of studies to understand the occurrence anddevelopment of pneumoconiosis, but the pathogenesis is remains unclear. There is noradical remedy to eliminate or reversal it up to now, and early diagnosis andwarning are very significant in this situation. Our previous experiments have alreadyscreened six Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis related antibodies included anti-IL-18and RF through constructing a human phage antibody library. It suggested thatanti-IL-18and RF might be involved in CWP. We decided to detect the expressionlevels of anti-IL-18and RF in328CWP patients,230observation subjects,309exposed workers and393normal controls through ELISA to explore the associationof anti-IL-18and RF with Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. It is very significant tosearch for some immunologic biomarkers against CWP, which can play importantroles in health surveillance and early warning of CWP.Materials and methodsCWP patients(n=328), observation subjects (n=230), subjects exposed to dust（n=309）and normal controls(n=393)were collected (GBZ70-2009was the standardof Chest radiographic determination). All subjects were male workers of Han race andwithout other pulmonary or autoimmune diseases. Five milliliter peripheral veinblood was drawn from all subjects. The expression levels of serum anti-IL-18and RFwere detected by the use of enzyme-linked-immunosorbent serologic assay (ELISA).We use SPSS21.0to analyze the acquired results; one-way ANOVA and LSD wereused to analyze all experimental data. Pearson was used to analysis the relationshipbetween anti-IL-18and RF. α=0.05.Results1. Comparative of the expression of anti-IL-18: The expression level ofanti-IL-18in CWP patients group, objective subjects group and dust exposed group were higher than that in normal control group（P<0.01）. Subjects in CWP patientsgroup were divided into three stages based on GBZ70-2009. LSD results showed thatthe level of anti-IL-18in Ⅱstage was higher than that in Ⅰs tage（P<0.05）,but therewere no difference between Ⅲstage and Ⅰstage （P>0.05）. The differences ofdifferent age groups in objective subjects group and dust exposed group have nosignificant difference in anti-IL-18expression（P<0.05）. The expression of anti-IL-18in smoking group has no significant difference with no smoking group in each group（P>0.05）, and no significant difference was found between drinking group and nodrinking group in each group（P>0.05）. There was significant difference between≥25years group and<25years group in anti-IL-18expression in Ⅰstage (P<0.05). Theexpression of anti-IL-18in different work groups also have significant differenceamong different groups（P<0.05）. The anti-IL-18levels of different work groupswere significantly different in CWP group（P<0.05）.2. Comparative of the expression of RF: The expression level of RF in CWPpatients group, objective subjects group and dust exposed group were higher thanthat in normal control group（P<0.05）. Subjects in CWP patients group were dividedinto three stages based on GBZ70-2009. The differences among the three stages werenot significant in RF expression（P>0.05）.The expression level of RF in differentages of different groups were also significantly different with each other（P<0.05）.The expression of RF in smoking group was significantly higher than thatin no smoking group（P<0.05）. The RF expression of objective subjects group indrinking group was higher than that in no drinking group（P<0.05）. There wassignificant difference between≥25years group and<25years group of RF expressionin ⅡⅢ stages and objective subjects group (P<0.05).3. The correlation between anti-IL-18and RF: Results of Pearson in each groupswere as follows: r=0.051, P=0.220, r=-0.041, P=0.456, r=0.058, P=0.310, r=0.077,P=0.127, which showed that no correlation was found between anti-IL-18and RF.Conclusion1. There were over-expressions of anti-IL-18and RF in CWP patients group, andthese over-expressions were related to the stages of CWP within limits, whichprompted that anti-IL-18and RF may play important roles in the aetiology and pathogenesis of CWP. They can be taken as biomarkers to evaluate the severity ofCWP.2. The expression of anti-IL-18and RF may be related to ages, dust exposure andwork group.3. Expression of anti-IL-18and RF has no correlation with each other, whichprompted that they may play different roles synergistically in CWP. |
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