{
  "abstract": "Introduction Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is the leading cause of systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients’ morbidity and mortality. The role of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) and their autoantibodies in SSc-ILD remains unclear.Material and Methods A total of 124 SSc patients were enrolled at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, China. Clinical and serological data, including serum levels of TAAs, were retrospectively collected from medical records. Single-cell RNA sequencing data were obtained from the public GEO database (GSE128169) to evaluate the expression of TAAs in SSc-ILD patients lung tissue. Additionally, 15 SSc patients’ sera were tested the concentrations of autoantibodies targeting TAAs using microarray (PA003, GeneCopoeia).Results Compared with SSc-non-ILD (n=38), SSc-ILD patients (n=86) showed significantly elevated serum levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21-1), pro-gastrin-releasing peptide (proGRP) and carbohydrate antigen 153 (CA153). Further subclassification of the 86 SSc-ILD patients into those with fibrosing ILD (SSc-F-ILD, n=62) and non-fibrosing ILD (SSc-non-F-ILD, n=24) revealed that serum levels of CEA, neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and CA153 were significantly higher in the SSc-F-ILD subgroup. Single-cell analysis exhibited increased expression of CEA and CA153 related genes in alveolar and bronchial epithelial cells. Antibody microarray demonstrated elevated serum levels of anti-CEA, anti-NSE and anti-CA199 IgG autoantibodies in SSc-ILD compared with SSc-non-ILD patients.Conclusions Elevated TAAs and their autoantibodies are associated with SSc-ILD, especially the fibrosing subtype. Single-cell analysis indicates that lung epithelial cells are a major source of these antigens, likely linking epithelial injury with autoantibody production.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Research Center Borstel-Department of Pulmonary Immune Diseases, Borstel, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Jiaxi Guo"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University-Department of Respiratory and Critical Medicine, Xiamen, China"
      ],
      "name": "Aiping Ma"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University-Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Xiamen, China"
      ],
      "name": "Heqing Huang"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University-Department of Nuclear Medicine, Xiamen, China"
      ],
      "name": "Shaowei Lin"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Research Center Borstel-Department of Pulmonary Immune Diseases, Borstel, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Biqi Fu"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "University Clinic of Schleswig Holstein, University of Lübeck-Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Lübeck, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Anja Kerstein-Stähle"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Research Center Borstel-Department of Pulmonary Immune Diseases, Borstel, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Frank Petersen"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Research Center Borstel-Department of Pulmonary Immune Diseases, Borstel, Germany"
      ],
      "name": "Xinhua Yu"
    }
  ],
  "title": "P.111 Association of systemic sclerosis-related interstitial lung disease with tumor-associated antigens and their autoantibodies",
  "uid": "6ee68bc2-09c5-57d5-b205-af09d553e83e"
}