Analysis of biomarkers in infiltrating facial lipoma by clinical grade
TANG Ying
SUN Bin
CHEN Hongrui
HUA Chen
LIN Xiaoxi
Abstract：Objective To explore the molecular characteristics and potential key factors across different severity levels of FIL patients by establishing a clinical grading system based on disease severity and combining it with serum Olink proteomic detection.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 12 patients with facial infiltrating lipomatosis who were admitted to the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital,Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine,between Jan-uary 2016 and December 2023.Serum samples were collected from the patients,with normal human serum used as controls.The Olink platform was used to detect 96 targeted proteins.Integrated with GO and KEGG functional enrichment analyses and subcellular localization prediction,the molecular characteristics of patients across different grades were systematically compared.Results Clinical grading de-fined Type Ⅰ patients with lesions involving 1-2 soft tissues and 1-2 jaw-facial bones;Type Ⅱ patients involved 3-4 soft tissues and 3 jaw-facial bones,with significant craniofacial bone deformities;Type Ⅲ patients involved ≥4 soft tissues and all jaw-facial bones,with unique manifestations such as temporalis muscle infiltration,ipsilateral frontal bone hyperplasia,and subcutaneous nodules of the scalp.Proteomic results indicated that differentially expressed proteins were primarily enriched in the TGF-β signaling pathway.GO anal-ysis revealed significant enrichment in"receptor-ligand activity,"while KEGG analysis highlighted enrichment in"signaling molecules and interactions."Subcellular localization results showed that approximately 60％of the differential proteins were secreted proteins.Further analysis identified that the inflammation-related secreted protein ARTN was most highly expressed in Type Ⅲ patients and positively correlated with disease severity.Conclusion This study proposes and validates a severity grading system for FIL based on clinical manifestations.Combined with serum proteomics,it reveals key molecular features associated with disease progression.ARTN may serve as an important molecular marker for FIL severity and could be a potential target for future clinical intervention and target-ed therapy.
Keywords：Facial infiltrating lipomatosisClinical gradingProteomicsARTNBiomarker
Publication Date：2025-12-15
Online Publishing Date：2026-01-19(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：5( 726-730 )