Aberrant highly prokineticin 2 and its association with inflammatory indexes and functional recovery in acute ischemic stroke patients.

BACKGROUND: Prokineticin 2 is associated with the macrophages-mediated biological process, neuronal death, oxidative stress, and inflammatory processes, while its clinical value in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has not been explored. This study aimed to evaluate the level of prokineticin 2 and its association with inflammatory indexes and functional recovery in AIS patients. METHODS: Serum samples in 210 AIS patients at admission and in 30 healthy subjects at enrollment were collected. Then, prokineticin 2 levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: Prokineticin 2 level was higher in AIS patients than healthy subjects (p < 0.001). Prokineticin 2 showed an acceptable ability to distinguish the AIS patients from healthy subjects (area under the curve: 0.812) with the best cut-off value at 4 ng/mL. No matter dividing the prokineticin 2 by continuous variable or quartiles, its value was positively correlated with the high sensitivity C reactive protein (HsCRP), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and interleukin 17A (IL-17A) (all p < 0.001). Prokineticin 2 showed a higher trend in AIS patients with Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score>2 compared with those with mRS score ≤2, but without statistical significance (p = 0.095). Besides, there was no association between prokineticin 2 by quartiles and the percentage of mRS > 2 (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Prokineticin 2 aberrantly highly expresses, and it indicates the inflammatory status, but with limited ability to predict the neural functional recovery in AIS patients.