TOPLINE

A study of patients with acute pancreatitis (AP) found that the expression of two heat-shock protein 70 (HSP70) family genes changed with disease severity: one gene's activity dropped significantly in moderate cases, while a specific variant of the second gene was linked to significantly higher activity, especially in the most severe cases.

METHODOLOGY

• AP is a serious condition of the digestive system that can become life-threatening and currently has no dedicated treatment, prompting researchers to investigate whether genetic markers, specifically HSP70 family gene variants and expression changes, could help predict disease severity early.
• They conducted a prospective case-control study, enrolling 43 patients with AP and comparing them with 47 healthy control individuals matched for age and sex.
• Patients with AP had a median age of 48.9 years and included 35 men (81.4%); disease severity was classified as severe in 20 cases (45.5%), moderate in 10 cases (23.3%), and mild in 13 cases (30.2%); alcohol was identified as the most common etiology in 67.4% of AP cases.
• DNA and RNA were extracted from patients' blood samples and analyzed using standard laboratory kits and quantitative PCR to measure the activity of two genes, HSPA1A and HSPA1L, and determine the genetic variants that each person carried at key regulatory regions of the two genes.
• Statistical tests were used to compare genotype patterns and gene activity between patients and control individuals and to assess how strongly each genetic variant was linked to the risk for disease.

TAKEAWAY

• Two genetic variants in the HSPA1A and HSPA1L genes were compared between patients with AP and healthy control individuals, but no meaningful differences emerged: most people in both groups carried the same common gene version.
• The activity of the HSPA1A gene was nearly half as high in patients with AP overall vs control individuals, although this difference was not statistically significant (P = .096); the decrease in activity was significant, however, in patients with moderate (P = .024) or mild-to-moderate disease (P = .008). The activity of the related HSPA1L gene showed no overall difference between patients with AP and control individuals, and although activity increased slightly as disease severity increased, this increase was not statistically significant.
• Patients with AP who carried a specific version of the HSPA1L gene, known as AG, had more than double the HSPA1L gene activity observed in patients with the more common AA version (P = .001). This pattern held true across the whole study group (P = .014) but was not observed when only healthy control individuals were examined, suggesting that the effect is tied specifically to having AP.
• Among patients with severe AP, gene activity for HSPA1L was highest in those carrying the AG variant, with higher levels than in patients with severe AP who carried the AA variant (P = .005). Even within the AA group alone, activity was higher in severe cases than in mild ones (P = .025).

IN PRACTICE

"Thus, our study supports the hypothesis that the association of HSP70 expression may be a valuable marker for prognostication or therapeutic purposes of AP," the authors wrote.

SOURCE

The study was led by Aiste Kielaite-Gulla, MD, PhD, Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. It was published online in Pancreas.

LIMITATIONS

The study included only a small number of patients, with even fewer patients in each genetic subgroup. Because patients were enrolled prospectively rather than in a controlled setting, researchers could not fully account for other clinical factors or track long-term outcomes. The study measured HSPA1A and HSPA1L gene activity only at the RNA level; future research should also test whether these changes are reflected in actual protein levels in the body.

DISCLOSURES

The research was partially funded by student support grants from Vilnius University.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.