Highly multiplexed proteomic analysis reveals significant tissue and exosomal coagulation pathway derangement in chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps.

BACKGROUND: The coagulation pathway has been previously implicated in the etiopathogenesis of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) through analysis of individual proteins within the cascade. The purpose of this study was to: (1) apply a large-scale proteomic approach to confirm these previous findings; and (2) correlate the protein aberrations between tissue and exosomes to establish exosomal proteomics as a method to probe the pathophysiology of CRSwNP.

METHODS: This investigation was an internal review board-approved study in which matched tissue and mucus exosomal proteomes were compared between control and CRSwNP (n = 10/group) using an aptamer-based proteomic array and confirmed using whole transcriptome sequencing. Protein expression and the correlation between samples were calculated using Student's t-test and Benjamini-Hochberg procedures followed by the application of Ingenuity Pathway and MetaCore™ bioinformatics analyses.

RESULTS: Among all protein pathways, the coagulation cascade was the most significantly associated with CRSwNP (p = 2.85e-8). Among the 13 significantly altered coagulation-related tissue proteins, fibronectin and fibrinogen gamma chains were the most overexpressed in CRSwNP relative to control (fold change [FC], 2.59; p = 0.006; and FC, 2.38; p < 0.001, respectively), whereas von Willebrand factor was the most underexpressed (FC, -3.06; p < 0.001). The exosomal fibrinolysis and coagulation pathway proteomes exhibited strong inverse and significant correlations with the tissue findings (r = -0.86; p = 0.013; and r = -0.79; p = 0.007, respectively).

CONCLUSION: Our proteomic analysis confirmed that the coagulation pathway is highly significantly deranged within nasal polyp tissue. The correlation between tissue- and mucus-derived exosomal fibrinolysis and coagulation protein alterations were strong, inverse, and highly significant. This lends further support to the emerging concept of exosomal proteomic analysis as a method to study chronic sinonasal inflammation.