Taurine As a Biomarker for Prediction of Response to Biologic Therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Soshi Takahashi¹, Jun Saegusa², Ikuko Naka¹, Kosaku Tsuda¹, Takaichi Okano¹, Kengo Akashi¹, Miwa Nishida¹, Keisuke Nishimura², Sho Sendo², Yo Ueda¹, Akira Onishi³, Yoshinori Kogata², Goichi Kageyama² and Akio Morinobu², ¹Department of Rheumatology, Kobe University Hospital, Kobe, Japan, ²Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan, ³Rheumaology and Clinical Immunology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan

Meeting: 2015 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting

Date of first publication: September 29, 2015

Keywords: Biologics, Biomarkers, Disease Activity, metabolomics and rheumatoid arthritis, pathogenesis

Session Information

Date: Sunday, November 8, 2015

Title: Rheumatoid Arthritis - Human Etiology and Pathogenesis Poster I

Session Type: ACR Poster Session A

Session Time: 9:00AM-11:00AM

Background/Purpose: To identify a serum biomarker for prediction of the response to biologics (Bio) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), we performed serum metabolomics analysis in RA patients before and after Bio treatment.

Methods: We collected the fasting serum samples of RA patients prior to starting or switching Bio treatment due to increased disease activity despite prior treatment with DMARDs or Bio. Twenty-seven patients were included (TNF-α inhibitors (TNFi) 13, tocilizumab (TCZ) 6, abatacept (ABT) 8). The average age was 60.1 (42-74) years old. There were 3 non-responders in TNFi group, and 1 in ABT. We also collected fasting serum samples from 12 healthy volunteers, and used as healthy controls (HC). We performed metabolome analysis using a Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS-QP2010 ultra). Multivariate statistics was carried out by using Simca P+ software.

Results: We detected 99 metabolites from the serum samples. The level of 44 of them was significantly different in RA patients (before Bio treatment) compared to HC. The 2D-plots of the principal component analysis (PCA) scores for all 99 metabolites showed distinct clustering for the two subject group. We have identified several metabolites which greatly contributed to the observed separation of the metabolomics profiles of the RA patients and HC by the corresponding 2D-PCA. Regarding prediction of response to biologics treatment, we revealed that patients with low serum levels of taurine at baseline showed good response to Bio treatment. The ROC analysis of taurine revealed an area under the curve of 0.900, with a specificity of 83.3% and sensitivity of 93.3% at the cutoff level of 0.00056 (P<0.001). In addition, we demonstrated that the serum levels of asparagine was significantly correlated with the DAS28-CRP (P<0.01, r²=0.269), and significantly increased after Bio treatment (P<0.05).

Conclusion: Our present findings indicate that the pathogenesis of RA is accompanied by variations in the serum levels of low molecular weight metabolites, which supports the potential for using GCMS-based metabolomics as a diagnostic and monitoring tool for RA, and taurine may be a novel biomarker to predict the therapeutic response to Bio in RA.

Disclosure: S. Takahashi, None; J. Saegusa, None; I. Naka, None; K. Tsuda, None; T. Okano, None; K. Akashi, None; M. Nishida, None; K. Nishimura, None; S. Sendo, None; Y. Ueda, None; A. Onishi, None; Y. Kogata, None; G. Kageyama, None; A. Morinobu, None.

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Takahashi S, Saegusa J, Naka I, Tsuda K, Okano T, Akashi K, Nishida M, Nishimura K, Sendo S, Ueda Y, Onishi A, Kogata Y, Kageyama G, Morinobu A. Taurine As a Biomarker for Prediction of Response to Biologic Therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/taurine-as-a-biomarker-for-prediction-of-response-to-biologic-therapy-in-rheumatoid-arthritis/. Accessed .

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