Detection of prospective biomarkers of response to Japanese traditional (Kampo) medicines in patients with rheumatoid arthritis using immune response biomarker profiling

• Published in: Traditional & Kampo medicine Vol. 3; no. 1; pp. 3 - 8
• Main Authors: Kogure, Toshiaki, Harada, Naoyuki, Yamamoto, Kanoko, Tatsumi, Takeshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melbourne Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd 01.04.2016
• Subjects: autoantibody; candidate predictor; Kampo responder; proteomics; rheumatoid arthritis
• DOI: 10.1002/tkm2.1028
• ISSN: 2053-4515

ABSTRACT Aim In Japan, Kampo medicine (KM) plays a critical role in primary health care, and also in the treatment of several serious diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Although traditional diagnostic methods are able to discriminate responders from non‐responders to KM, the aim of this study was to propose a methodology to translate the traditional diagnosis, and identify a predictive biomarker of the beneficial effect of KM in RA patients. Methods Three groups (healthy controls; non‐responders to keishinieppiittokaryojutsubu (KER; representative KM formula for RA); and responders to KER) were investigated, and each group included five people. Autoantibody profile from the sera obtained from each group was analyzed using immune response biomarker profiling. A candidate biomarker autoantibody was identified using Genepix microarray systems. Results In responders to KER, autoantibodies to family with sequence similarity 219, member A ( FAM219A ; previously known as C9orf25) were detected. In contrast, autoantibodies to zinc finger, FYVE domain containing 19 ( ZFYVE19 ) were detected in non‐responders. Conclusions Candidate biomarkers for discriminating responders from non‐responders to KER for RA were identified. The present results may open the way to the standardization of the Kampo diagnostic system, and to classify RA patients according to immune status.