Serum apolipoprotein A2 isoforms in autoimmune pancreatitis

Recently, apolipoprotein A2 (apoA2) isoforms have been reported as candidate serum/plasma biomarkers of pancreatic cancer. However, the distribution of apoA2 isoforms in patients with autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) has not been investigated yet. In this study, we evaluated the distribution of serum apoA2 isoforms; i.e., homodimer apoA2-ATQ/ATQ, heterodimer apoA2-ATQ/AT, and homodimer apoA2-AT/AT, in AIP patients and healthy volunteers (HV) using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and the clinical characteristics and serum levels of each apoA2 isoform in 32 AIP patients and 38 HV were investigated. The calculated apoA2-ATQ/AT levels of the AIP patients were significantly lower than those of the HV, which agreed with results obtained for patients with pancreatic cancer. Interestingly, most of the AIP patients exhibited high levels of apoA2-ATQ along with low levels of apoA2-AT, indicating that the processing of the C-terminal regions of apoA2 dimer was inhibited in the AIP patients. This specific distribution of serum apoA2 isoforms might provide important information about the disease states of AIP patients and aid the differential diagnosis of AIP versus pancreatic cancer.