Complement effectors, C5a and C3a, in cystic fibrosis lung fluid correlate with disease severity

• Published in: PloS one 2017-03, Vol.12 (3), p.e0173257-e0173257
• Main Authors: Hair, Pamela S, Sass, Laura A, Vazifedan, Turaj, Shah, Tushar A, Krishna, Neel K, Cunnion, Kenji M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Airway management; Antibiotics; Biology; Biology and Life Sciences; Biomarkers - metabolism; Body Fluids - immunology; Body mass; Care and treatment; Child; Child, Preschool; Children & youth; Complement C3a - metabolism; Complement C5a - metabolism; Complement component C3a; Complement component C5a; Complement system; Correlation analysis; Critical care; Cystic fibrosis; Cystic Fibrosis - immunology; Cystic Fibrosis - physiopathology; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Effectors; Elastase; Female; Fluids; Health aspects; Hospitals; Humans; Immunology; Inflammation; Inflammation - immunology; Inflammation - physiopathology; Leukocyte Elastase; Longitudinal Studies; Lung diseases; Male; Markers; Medical schools; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Neutrophils; Pediatrics; Peroxidase; Pilot Projects; Prospective Studies; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Research and Analysis Methods; Severity of Illness Index; Sputum; Sputum - immunology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173257

In cystic fibrosis (CF), lung damage is mediated by a cycle of obstruction, infection, inflammation and tissue destruction. The complement system is a major mediator of inflammation for many diseases with the effectors C5a and C3a often playing important roles. We have previously shown in a small pilot study that CF sputum soluble fraction concentrations of C5a and C3a were associated with clinical measures of CF disease. Here we report a much larger study of 34 CF subjects providing 169 testable sputum samples allowing longitudinal evaluation comparing C5a and C3a with clinical markers. Levels of the strongly pro-inflammatory C5a correlated negatively with FEV1% predicted (P < 0.001), whereas the often anti-inflammatory C3a correlated positively with FEV1% predicted (P = 0.01). C5a concentrations correlated negatively with BMI percentile (P = 0.017), positively with worsening of an acute pulmonary exacerbation score (P = 0.007) and positively with P. aeruginosa growth in sputum (P = 0.002). C5a levels also correlated positively with concentrations of other sputum markers associated with worse CF lung disease including neutrophil elastase (P < 0.001), myeloperoxidase activity (P = 0.006) and DNA concentration (P < 0.001). In contrast to C5a, C3a levels correlated negatively with worse acute pulmonary exacerbation score and correlated negatively with sputum concentrations of neutrophil elastase, myeloperoxidase activity and DNA concentration. In summary, these data suggest that in CF sputum, increased C5a is associated with increased inflammation and poorer clinical measures, whereas increased C3a appears to be associated with less inflammation and improved clinical measures.