Serum Cytokine Profiling in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: A Pilot Study of Candidate Discriminators, Sex Differences and Altered Co-Regulation
6 affiliations
- 1División de Inmunología, Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Occidente (CIBO), Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), Guadalajara 44340, Jalisco, Mexico
- 2Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biomédicas, Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara 44340, Jalisco, Mexico
- 3Clínica de Tumores Gastrointestinales, Servicio de Oncología, Unidad Médica de Alta Especialidad, Centro Médico Nacional de Occidente, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), Guadalajara 44340, Jalisco, Mexico
- 4Hospital Regional de Alta Especialidad, Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (IS-SSTE), Tlajomulco de Zúñiga 45640, Jalisco, Mexico
- 5Unidad de Investigación Epidemiológica y en Servicios de Salud, Centro Médico Nacional de Occidente, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), Guadalajara 44340, Jalisco, Mexico
- 6Programa de Doctorado en Microbiología Médica, Centro Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara 44340, Jalisco, Mexico
Abstract
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is rarely detected before the disease is advanced, and existing serum markers are insufficient for early detection. Its systemic immune alterations are incompletely characterized and rarely examined by sex. We measured 19 serum cytokines by bead-based multiplex assay in 22 patients with PDAC and 16 controls, comparing groups overall and separately in women and men, and examined co-regulation among them. In the full cohort, interleukin-7 (IL-7) was the only cytokine to discriminate patients from controls after correction for multiple testing. Adjustment for age strengthened this association, and IL-7 matched the discrimination of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9). After stratification by sex, IL-7 remained the only cytokine higher in women, though it did not survive correction within that subgroup, whereas in men, eight innate, T-helper 17 (Th17) and type I interferon cytokines (IL-1α, IL-1RA, IL-31, IFN-α, IL-17A, IL-17F, TNF-α, and TNF-β) separated patients from controls, although the male control group was small. The correlation network present in controls was largely absent in patients, which instead showed few associations centered on IL-2, IL-5 and IL-6. These findings identify IL-7 as a candidate discriminator of PDAC and show that the cytokines separating patients from controls differed by sex, warranting validation in a larger, sex-balanced cohort that also measures sex hormones.
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BibTeX
@article{garciagomez2026serum,
title = {{Serum Cytokine Profiling in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: A Pilot Study of Candidate Discriminators, Sex Differences and Altered Co-Regulation}},
author = {Jesús García-Gómez and Samuel Agredano-Pérez and Diana Alejandra Rubio-Delgado and Adriana Aguilar-Lemarroy and Luis Felipe Jave-Suárez and Sarah Naomi Guevara-Hernández and Alejandro Bravo-Cuéllar and Aníbal Samael Méndez-Clemente and Georgina Hernández-Flores and María Martha Villaseñor-García},
journal = {Biomolecules},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/biom16101492},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/16/10/1492},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Serum Cytokine Profiling in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: A Pilot Study of Candidate Discriminators, Sex Differences and Altered Co-Regulation
AU - Jesús García-Gómez
AU - Samuel Agredano-Pérez
AU - Diana Alejandra Rubio-Delgado
AU - Adriana Aguilar-Lemarroy
AU - Luis Felipe Jave-Suárez
AU - Sarah Naomi Guevara-Hernández
AU - Alejandro Bravo-Cuéllar
AU - Aníbal Samael Méndez-Clemente
AU - Georgina Hernández-Flores
AU - María Martha Villaseñor-García
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Biomolecules
DO - 10.3390/biom16101492
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/16/10/1492
AB - Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is rarely detected before the disease is advanced, and existing serum markers are insufficient for early detection. Its systemic immune alterations are incompletely characterized and rarely examined by sex. We measured 19 serum cytokines by bead-based multiplex assay in 22 patients with PDAC and 16 controls, comparing groups overall and separately in women and men, and examined co-regulation among them. In the full cohort, interleukin-7 (IL-7) was the only cytokine to discriminate patients from controls after correction for multiple testing. Adjustment for age strengthened this association, and IL-7 matched the discrimination of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9). After stratification by sex, IL-7 remained the only cytokine higher in women, though it did not survive correction within that subgroup, whereas in men, eight innate, T-helper 17 (Th17) and type I interferon cytokines (IL-1α, IL-1RA, IL-31, IFN-α, IL-17A, IL-17F, TNF-α, and TNF-β) separated patients from controls, although the male control group was small. The correlation network present in controls was largely absent in patients, which instead showed few associations centered on IL-2, IL-5 and IL-6. These findings identify IL-7 as a candidate discriminator of PDAC and show that the cytokines separating patients from controls differed by sex, warranting validation in a larger, sex-balanced cohort that also measures sex hormones.
SN - 2218-273X
ER -