Serum-C-reactive protein (CRP) and 25 (OH)-VitD3 levels
inversely correlated in control but not in asthmatic pre-school
children
C-reactive protein (CRP) is a plasma protein, whose levels rise in
response to inflammation and infections. It is an hepatic acute-phase
protein that increases following interleukin-6 secretion by macrophages
and T cells. Its physiological role is to bind to
lysophosphatidylcholine expressed on the surface of dead or dying cells
(and some types of bacteria) promoting phagocytosis by macrophages,
which clears necrotic and apoptotic cells and bacteria. In healthy
adults, the normal concentrations of CRP varies between 0.8 mg/L to 3.0
mg/L. However, some healthy adults show elevated CRP at 10 mg/L. The
plasma half-life of CRP is 19
hours.21 We next asked
if serum CRP level at recruitment in our cohort of children correlated
with their serum level of 25(OH)VitD3.
The design of the study is reported in Fig 1a and the levels of
CRP of the cohorts are reported in Table 1 . We noticed that
both control and asthmatic children group had one child with low
25(OH)VitD3 (less than 20 ng/ml) and very high CRP. We next correlated
25(OH)VitD3 and serum CRP levels without this very high CRP value in
both cohorts (Fig 1b,c and d,e) and next in asthma we analyzed
only data with CRP data lower than 2.5mg/ml, to be in the CRP range of
controls (Fig 1f ) and looked at the correlation with serum
VitD3. Here we found that, control but not asthmatic children had an
inverse correlation between their serum CRP value and serum 25(OH)VitD3
levels (Fig1c ). Considering the CRP value in asthma, we noticed
they were higher as compared to control children, indicating an ongoing
infection, inflammation in these asthmatic children (Fig 1e).