PMON31 IL-4 Serum Levels Correlate with Triglycerides and VLDL in African American males

BACKGROUND: Cytokines can play dual roles in diseases, while they signal the activation of the immune system, their mechanism of action results in inflammation. Low grade inflammation is often associated with metabolic diseases and a network of serum cytokines. IL-4 has been found to play a pro-inflammatory role in many conditions surrounding inflammation such as: atopic dermatitis and asthma. As it pertains to lipid metabolism IL4 has been shown to play a protective role in mice. A previous study has shown that IL4 regulates glucose and lipid metabolism by increasing sensitivity to insulin, inhibiting adipogenesis, and increasing glucose tolerance. Dysfunction in lipid metabolism can lead to other metabolic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. The molecular characterization of IL4's effect in metabolic diseases has yet to be completed. IL4 has been shown to correlate with serum triglyceride and cholesterol, VLDL levels. However, further studies must be carried out to illuminate the molecular cause of these relationships as well as other relationships among metabolic diseases. METHODS: A total of 68 serum samples were collected from 34 obese, normal HbA1c and 34 obese, elevated HbA1c African American men. Clinical metabolic parameters were determined using standard commercial kits administered by Laboratory Corporation of America. Thirty chemokines/cytokines were measured using a multiplexing assay Luminex X-MAP® technology. Descriptive statistics were computed for each variable for participants with normal and elevated HbA1c. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. A series of unpaired t-test were computed to determine if there were significant differences between participants with and without elevated HbA1c. Pairwise Pearson Correlation (r) test was computed for each variable. RESULTS: In participants with normal HbA1c levels, IL-4 is positively correlated with VLDL (R= 0.6175, P=0.0014). There was no significant correlation in participants with elevated HbA1c in this study (R=0.08168, P=0.1758). Total cholesterol did not have any significant correlation with IL4 in this study; however, there was a positive correlation with IL-4 (R=0.6269, P=0.0013) and triglycerides in participants with normal HbA1c, no correlation seen in this study in participants with high HbA1c. CONCLUSION: This data suggests that IL4-JAK-STAT pathway may play a role in the regulation of IL4, triglycerides, and VLDL in males. The correlations between IL-4 and both serum triglyceride and serum cholesterol, VLDL levels prompt the need to further study possible molecular relationships with other inflammatory biomarkers for metabolic diseases. Presentation: Monday, June 13, 2022 12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.