Anti-p-benzoquinone antibody level as a prospective biomarker to identify smokers at risk for COPD

What is it about?

Identification of smokers having predisposition to COPD is important for early intervention to reduce the huge global burden of the disease. Para-benzoquinone (p-BQ) derived from cigarette smoke (CS) in the lung is a potential causative factor for CS-induced COPD. p-BQ elicits the production of anti-p-BQ antibody in humans. We therefore hypothesized that anti-p-BQ antibody might have a protective role against CS-induced COPD and could be used as a predictive biomarker for COPD in smokers. The objective of this study was to compare the serum anti-p-BQ antibody level between smokers with and without COPD for the evaluation of the hypothesis. Serum anti-p-BQ antibody concentrations of smokers with and without COPD were measured by an indirect enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA) . A significant difference was observed in the serum anti-p-BQ antibody level between smokers with and without COPD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis indicated that the ELISA had significant precision for identifying smokers with COPD from their low antibody level. The antibody cutoff value was constructed from the ROC coordinates to estimate the risk for COPD in smokers. We observed that While 90.3% of smokers with COPD had a low antibody value (ie, less than cut-off value), the majority (86.4%) of smokers without COPD had a high antibody value (more than or equals to the cut-off value).The 13.6% of current smokers without COPD having an antibody level below this cutoff value (odds ratio [OR] =59.3, 95% CI: 34.15–101.99) were considered to be at risk for COPD.These results indicate that serum anti-p-BQ antibody level may be used as a biomarker to identify asymptomatic smokers at risk for COPD for early intervention of the disease.

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Why is it important?

Serum anti-p-benzoquinone antibody is an innovative biomarker for asymptomatic smokers at risk for COPD.

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