Background:The discovery and evaluation of reliable biomarkers of vitiligo are important; however, no clinically established serological markers exist for predicting the clinical prognosis of vitiligo.Objective: To investigate the levels of SOX 10 and lamin A/C antibodies in the serum of patients diagnosed with vitiligo.Methods: In this multicenter prospective study, blood serum samples were collected from adult vitiligo patients.The levels of SOX 10 and lamin A/C antibodies were analyzed by direct sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Antibody levels between the groups were compared according to disease activity and subtype.Results: A total of 80 patients (46 females; median age 60 years) were enrolled, including 56 (70%) with nonsegmental vitiligo and 27 (33.7%)with active disease.Positivity for SOX10 and lamin A/C antibodies was observed in 35.0% and 71.3% of patients, respectively.SOX10 positivity was significantly higher in active vitiligo than in stable vitiligo (59.3% vs. 24.5%;p=0.003), whereas lamin A/C positivity did not show significant difference (77.8% vs. 69.8%;p=0.60).No significant associations were found between SOX10 or lamin A/C status and the subtype, extent, or the presence of antinuclear antibody, anti-thyroid peroxidase, or anti-thyroglobulin (all p>0.05).Conclusion: SOX 10 antibody could be a potential marker for assessing disease activity in vitiligo.The increased production of SOX 10 antibodies in the serum may be due to the underlying death or turnover of SOX 10 containing cells under active autoimmune response.
Kim et al. (Thu,) studied this question.