Distinct interferon signatures and cytokine patterns define additional systemic autoinflammatory diseases
- J Clin Invest. 2020 Apr 1;130(4):1669-1682. doi: 10.1172/JCI129301.
- 1. Translational Autoinflammatory Diseases Section (TADS), NIAID/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 2. Department of Rheumatology, Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital, Shandong University, Shandong, China.
- 3. Biomining and Discovery Section, NIAMS/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 4. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
- 5. Immunology & Inflammation Research Therapeutic Area, Sanofi, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
- 6. Department of Laboratory Medicine (DLM), Clinical Center/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 7. Computational Systems Biology Section.
- 8. Laboratory of Immunoregulation, and.
- 9. Bioinformatics and Computational Biosciences Branch (BCBB), Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology (OCICB), NIAID/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 10. The Autoinflammatory Diseases Consortium.
- 11. Levine Children's Hospital, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
- 12. Divisions of Immunology & Rheumatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Washington, USA.
- 13. Virginia Commonwealth University & Pediatric Specialists of Virginia, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.
- 14. Division of Rheumatology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
- 15. Department of Pediatrics, Pediatric Rheumatology Section, Alberta Children's Hospital, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- 16. Immunology Unit, Pediatric Hospital R. Gutierrez, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 17. Department of Pediatric Medicine, Sidra Medicine, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar.
- 18. Nemours/Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, Delaware, USA.
- 19. Division of Rheumatology, Children's Hospital Los Angeles & USC, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- 20. Pediatric Rheumatology, Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, Austin, Texas, USA.
- 21. Divisions of Pediatric AIBMT & Rheumatology, UCSF, San Francisco, California, USA.
- 22. Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milano, Milan, Italy.
- 23. Division of Rheumatology, Janeway Children's Hospital & Rehabilitation Centre, Saint John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
- 24. Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Children's Hospital, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.
- 25. Department of Immunology, Allergy and Rheumatology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
- 26. Division of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology & Rheumatology, UC Davis Health, Sacramento, California, USA.
- 27. Department of Pediatrics/Pediatric Rheumatology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
- 28. Pediatrics Department, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
- 29. Pathology Department, University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Washington, USA.
- 30. Center for Autoinflammatory Diseases and Immunedeficiencies, IRCCS Giannina Gaslini, Genoa, Italy.
- 31. Division of Rheumatology, Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
- 32. Department of Pediatrics Indiana University School of Medicine and Riley Hospital for Children, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
- 33. Pediatric Rheumatology Unit, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.
- 34. Department of Women's & Children's Health, Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool & Department of Paediatric Rheumatology, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
- 35. Department of Otolaryngology, Division of Allergy and Immunology, New York University, New York, New York, USA.
- 36. Asklepios Klinik Sankt, Augustin GmbH, St. Augustin, Germany and Department of Pediatric and Adolescents Medicine, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
- 37. Augusta University Medical Center, Augusta, Georgia, USA.
- 38. Division of Rheumatology, Children's Mercy, Kansas City and University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.
- 39. Pediatric Translational Research Branch, NIAMS/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 40. Randall Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, Portland, Oregon, USA.
- 41. Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- 42. Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
- 43. Department of Pediatrics, Medizinische Fakultät Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
- 44. Systemic Autoimmunity Branch, NIAMS/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 45. Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, Hackensack, New Jersey, USA.
- 46. Department of Rheumatology, Pediatric Section, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
- 47. Azerbaijan Medical University, Baku, Azerbaijan.
- 48. Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.
- 49. Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, Weill Cornell Medicine & Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, New York, USA.
- 50. Hacettepe University, Department of Pediatrics, Ankara, Turkey.
- 51. Children Hospital Pellegrin-Enfants, Bordeaux, France.
- 52. Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Federal University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
- 53. Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA.
- 54. Division of Rheumatology, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- 55. University of Nebraska Medical Center/Children's Hospital and Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
- 56. Environmental Autoimmunity Group, NIEHS/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 57. Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Nicklaus Children's Hospital, Miami, Florida, USA.
- 58. Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, Children's National Health System, Washington, DC, USA.
- 59. Division of Pediatric Dermatology and Rheumatology, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, Canada.
- 60. Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA.
- 61. Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Department of Pediatrics, St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim, Norway.
- 62. University of Cape Town, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.
- 63. Pediatric Rheumatology, Children's Hospital of Orange County, UC Irvine, Irvine, California, USA.
- 64. Section of Rheumatology, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
- 65. Division of Immunology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
- 66. Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Shupyk National Medical Academy for Postgraduate Education, Kiev, Ukraine.
- 67. IWK Health Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
- 68. Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, Department of Rheumatology, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, New York, USA.
- 69. Undiagnosed Diseases Program, NHGRI/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- 70. Bone Health Program, Children's National Health System, Washington, DC, USA.
- 71. Department of Pediatric Immunology and Rheumatology, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.
- 72. New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.
- 73. Children's Hospital Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
BACKGROUNDUndifferentiated systemic autoinflammatory diseases (USAIDs) present diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Chronic interferon (IFN) signaling and cytokine dysregulation may identify diseases with available targeted treatments.METHODSSixty-six consecutively referred USAID patients underwent underwent screening for the presence of an interferon signature using a standardized type-I IFN-response-gene score (IRG-S), cytokine profiling, and genetic evaluation by next-generation Sequencing.RESULTSThirty-six USAID patients (55%) had elevated IRG-S. Neutrophilic panniculitis (40% vs. 0%), basal ganglia calcifications (46% vs. 0%), interstitial lung disease (47% vs. 5%), and myositis (60% vs. 10%) were more prevalent in patients with elevated IRG-S. Moderate IRG-S elevation and highly elevated serum IL-18 distinguished 8 patients with pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) and recurrent macrophage activation syndrome (MAS). Among patients with panniculitis and progressive cytopenias, 2 patients were compound heterozygous for potentially novel LRBA mutations, 4 patients harbored potentially novel splice variants in IKBKG (which encodes NF-κB essential modulator [NEMO]), and 6 patients had de novo frameshift mutations in SAMD9L. Of additional 12 patients with elevated IRG-S and CANDLE-, SAVI- or Aicardi-Goutières syndrome-like (AGS-like) phenotypes, 5 patients carried mutations in either SAMHD1, TREX1, PSMB8, or PSMG2. Two patients had anti-MDA5 autoantibody-positive juvenile dermatomyositis, and 7 could not be classified. Patients with LRBA, IKBKG, and SAMD9L mutations showed a pattern of IRG elevation that suggests prominent NF-κB activation different from the canonical interferonopathies CANDLE, SAVI, and AGS.CONCLUSIONSIn patients with elevated IRG-S, we identified characteristic clinical features and 3 additional autoinflammatory diseases: IL-18-mediated PAP and recurrent MAS (IL-18PAP-MAS), NEMO deleted exon 5-autoinflammatory syndrome (NEMO-NDAS), and SAMD9L-associated autoinflammatory disease (SAMD9L-SAAD). The IRG-S expands the diagnostic armamentarium in evaluating USAIDs and points to different pathways regulating IRG expression.TRIAL REGISTRATIONClinicalTrials.gov NCT02974595.FUNDINGThe Intramural Research Program of the NIH, NIAID, NIAMS, and the Clinical Center.