{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,5]],"date-time":"2026-10-05T21:23:25Z","timestamp":1791235405763,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"24","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,18]],"date-time":"2023-12-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1702857600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"\u201cIuliu Hatieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca","award":["2461\/64\/17 January 2020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2461\/64\/17 January 2020"]}]},{"name":"\u201cIuliu Hatieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca","award":["1033\/57\/13 January 2021"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["1033\/57\/13 January 2021"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJMS"],"abstract":"<jats:p>High-throughput proteomic analysis could offer new insights into the pathogenesis of systemic sclerosis (SSc) and reveal non-invasive biomarkers for diagnosis and severity. This study aimed to assess the protein signature of patients with SSc compared to that of healthy volunteers, decipher various disease endotypes using circulating proteins, and determine the diagnostic performance of significantly expressed plasma analytes. We performed targeted proteomic profiling in a cohort of fifteen patients with SSc and eighteen controls using the Olink\u00ae (Olink Bioscience, Uppsala, Sweden)Target 96 Inflammation Panels. Seventeen upregulated proteins involved in angiogenesis, innate immunity, and co-stimulatory pathways discriminated between patients with SSc and healthy controls (HCs) and further classified them into two clusters, a low-inflammatory and a high-inflammatory endotype. Younger age, shorter disease duration, and lack of reflux esophagitis characterized patients in the low-inflammatory endotype. TNF, CXCL9, TNFRSF9, and CXCL10 positively correlated with disease progression, while the four-protein panel comprising TNF, CXCL9, CXCL10, and CX3CL1 showed high diagnostic performance. Collectively, this study identified a distinct inflammatory signature in patients with SSc that reflects a persistent T helper type 1 (Th 1) immune response irrespective of disease duration, while the multi-protein panel might improve early diagnosis in SSc.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijms242417601","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,18]],"date-time":"2023-12-18T05:41:35Z","timestamp":1702878095000},"page":"17601","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Immune Profiling of Patients with Systemic Sclerosis through Targeted Proteomic Analysis"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"24","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8598-2848","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Iulia","family":"Szabo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Rheumatology, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Rheumatology, County Emergency Hospital, 400347 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Medeea","family":"Badii","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Medical Genetics, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (RIMLS), Radboud University Medical Center, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ildik\u00f3 O.","family":"Ga\u00e1l","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Medical Genetics, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (RIMLS), Radboud University Medical Center, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5033-1009","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Robert","family":"Szabo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"2nd Anesthesia Department, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, County Emergency Hospital, 400347 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8156-0621","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Claudia","family":"S\u00eerbe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"2nd Pediatric Discipline, Department of Mother and Child, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"2nd Pediatric Clinic, Center of Expertise in Pediatric Liver Rare Disorders, Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children, 400177 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Oana","family":"Humi\u021b\u0103","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Rheumatology, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6166-9830","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Leo A. B.","family":"Joosten","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Medical Genetics, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (RIMLS), Radboud University Medical Center, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3282-5627","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tania O.","family":"Cri\u0219an","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Medical Genetics, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Internal Medicine, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (RIMLS), Radboud University Medical Center, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Simona","family":"Rednic","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Rheumatology, \u201cIuliu Ha\u021bieganu\u201d University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400012 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"},{"name":"Department of Rheumatology, County Emergency Hospital, 400347 Cluj-Napoca, Romania"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"101","article-title":"Candidate proteomic biomarkers in systemic sclerosis discovered using mass-spectrometry: An update of a systematic review (2014\u20132020)","volume":"59","year":"2021","journal-title":"Rom. 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