Tumor necrosis factor alpha-induced protein 3: Biomarker discovery and therapeutic advancement in primary biliary...

In this article, the author comment on the article by Zang et al. Tumor necrosis factor alpha-induced protein 3 (TNFAIP3) was examined in this study as a novel biomarker to predict the efficiency of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) and thereby improved primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) treatment. Differentially expressed genes in PBC patients and healthy controls (HCs) were detected using microarray expression analysis. PBC patients and HCs were examined for predictive performance and associations between important genes and clinicopathological features using immunohistochemistry, logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic curve methods. Thirteen genes linked to the development of PBC were detected by the bioinformatic research. TNFAIP3 was chosen for additional examination from these 13 genes. TNFAIP3 was shown to be more expressed in PBCs patients than in HCs using immunohistochemical method. TNFAIP3 and fatigue have a significant impact on UDCA in PBC patients in multivariate cox regression analysis. Additionally, there was a correlation between TNFAIP3 expression and splenomegaly, alkaline phosphatase, albumin, total bilirubin, and age. In conclusion, TNFAIP3 and fatigue have significant impact on UDCA in PBC. These findings provide a new view on PBC pathophysiology and suggest that TNFAIP3 may be a suitable biomarker or therapeutic target for the disease.