Urzua CA, Chen P, Chaigne-Delalande B, et al. - In patients with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease, researchers conducted this prospective cohort study to examine the potential of utilizing the expression of genes for glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase-1 (MKP-1) as biomarkers of corticosteroid (CS) refractoriness and disease activity. For this investigation, 20 VKH individuals receiving their first cycle of CS treatment in the absence of additional systemic immunosuppressive therapy and a control group of 15 healthy volunteers were selected from the University of Chile (Santiago, Chile) and US National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, United States). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from CS-refractory VKH patients had an impaired elevation in GRα expression after 6 hours of stimulation in the presence of Dex. In addition, inactive patients displayed a significant Dex-induced upregulation of MKP-1. According to findings, the expression of GR isoforms and MKP-1, respectively, corresponded to the clinical response of patients to systemic CS treatment and disease activity. Therefore, in patients with VKH disease, these candidate biomarkers have possible clinical use in early detection of CS refractoriness and subclinical inflammation.