Increased expressions of integrin subunit β1, β2 and β3 in patients with venous thromboembolism: new markers for venous thromboembolism

Objective: To investigate the core proteins (integrin subunits β1, β2 and β3) in the acute venous thrombi and validate the specificity and sensitivity of increased expression of integrin subunits β1, β2 and β3 in patients with venous thromboembolism.

Methods: A total of 120 patients (73 females) with clinically proven acute VTE and aged between 24-90 years, and 120 non-VTE patients and healthy controls receiving physical examination matched in the sex and age were recruited. Flow cytometry was done to measure the expressions of blood integrin β1, β2 and β3. The receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of integrin β1, β2 and β3.

Results: The median levels of integrin β1, β2 and β3 were significantly higher in VTE patients than in non-VTE patients (P=0.000, 0.000 and 0.000, respectively) and healthy controls (P=0.000, 0.000 and 0.000, respectively). The ROC curves showed that integrin β1, β2 and β3 were specific diagnostic predictors of VTE with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.870, 0.821, and 0.731, respectively. When three integrins were combined for diagnosis, the AUC of ROC curve was 0.916, and the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were 84.6%, 90.8%, 81.7% and 92.0%, respectively.

Conclusion: The increased integrin β1, β2 and β3, as the core protein of venous thrombosis, have relatively high specificity and sensitivity for VTE and thus may serve as useful new biomarkers for the diagnoses of VTE.