Salivary gland secretome: a novel tool towards molecular stratification of patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome and non-autoimmune sicca

OBJECTIVE: To explore the potential of salivary gland biopsy supernatants (the secretome) as a novel tool to aid in stratification of patients with sicca syndrome and to study local immunopathology in Sjögren’s syndrome. METHODS: Labial salivary gland biopsies were incubated in saline for 1 hour. In these tissue supernatants from a discovery cohort (n=16) of patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) and non-Sjögren’s sicca (nSS), 101 inflammatory mediators were measured by Luminex. Results were validated in a replication cohort (n=57) encompassing patients with pSS, incomplete SS and nSS. RESULTS: The levels of 23 cytokines were significantly increased in patients with pSS versus nSS in the discovery cohort. These 23 and 3 additional cytokines were measured in a second cohort. Elevated concentrations of 11 cytokines were validated and the majority correlated with clinical parameters. Classification tree analysis indicated that the concentrations of CXCL13, IL-21, sIL-2R and sIL-7Rα could be used to classify 95.8% of patients with pSS correctly. CONCLUSION: Labial salivary gland secretomes can be used to reliably assess mediators involved in immunopathology of patients with pSS, potentially contributing to patient classification. As such, this method represents a novel tool to identify therapeutic targets and markers for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment response.