Resumen de Retinol-binding protein 4 and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 as potential prognostic biomarkers of non-allergic asthma caused by obesity in adolescents

José de Jesús Leija Martínez, Karla L. Patricio Román, Blanca Estela del Río Navarro, Salvador Villalpando, Juan Antonio Reyes Garay, Juan Manuel Vélez Reséndiz, Rodrigo Romero Nava, Fausto Sánchez Muñoz, Santiago Villafaña, Onofre Muñoz Hernández, Enrique Hong, Mª Esther Ocharán, Fengyang Huang

• Background: Non-allergic asthma caused by obesity is a complication of the low-grade chronic inflammation inherent in obesity. Consequently, the serum concentrations of adipokines such as retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) increase. No gold standard molecule for the prediction of non-allergic asthma among obese patients has been identified.

  Objective: To evaluate RBP4 and PAI-1 as prognostic biomarkers of non-allergic asthma caused by obesity.

  Methods: A cross-sectional study between four groups of adolescents: (1) healthy (n = 35), (2) allergic asthma without obesity (n = 28), (3) obesity without asthma (n = 33), and (4) non-allergic asthma with obesity (n = 18).

  Results: RBP4 was higher in the non-allergic asthma with obesity group than in the obesity without asthma group (39.2 ng/mL [95% confidence interval (CI): 23.8–76.0] vs. 23.5 ng/mL [95% CI: 3.2–33.5], p < 0.01), and PAI-1 was higher in the non-allergic asthma with obesity group than in the obesity without asthma group (21.9 ng/mL [95% CI: 15.7–26.5] vs. 15.9 ng/mL [95% CI: 9.4–18.2], p < 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis demonstrated that the serum RBP4 cut-off value was >42.78 ng/mL, with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.741 (95% CI: 0.599–0.853, p = 0.001), considered acceptable. The PAI-1 cut-off value was >12.0 ng/mL, with an AUC of 0.699 (95% CI: 0.554–0.819, p = 0.008), considered fair.

  Conclusions: RBP4 may be useful to predict non-allergic asthma among obese adolescents in clinical practice.