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Expression profiles of Th17 pathway related genes in human systemic lupus erythematosus

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Abstract

Recently, evidence is emerging that inappropriate regulation of type 17 T helper cells (Th17) plays a fundamental role in the development of many autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, the role of Th17-related cytokines in SLE remains elusive. To further investigate the role and imbalance of Th17-related cytokines in the pathogenesis of SLE. A Quantitative RT-PCR Array (Human Th17 for Autoimmunity & Inflammation PCR Array) analyses were performed to study Th17-related genes expression in peripheral white blood cells of 25 new-onset patients with SLE and 15 healthy subjects. When gene expression for SLE patients was compared to the mean of normal controls, among the 84 target genes related to Th17 pathway, 7 (CXCL1, ICAM1, IL10, IL5, IL8, ISG20, JAK2,) were upregulated and 6 (CD28, CD40LG, S1PR1, IL17RE, IL23R, RORC) downregulated. However, comparisons of mRNA expression of Th17 related cytokines between lupus nephritis (LN) patients and SLE patients without nephritis (SLE non LN) showed no significant difference. In conclusion, SLE patients and normal controls showed different expression of a few genes in Th17 pathway, indicating that the pathway may be involved in the pathogenesis of SLE.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81102192, 30830089), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20113420120008) and the Grants for Scientific Research of BSKY (No. XJ201014) from Anhui Medical University. We thank all the study subjects for their participation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, 81 Meishan Road, Hefei, 230032, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Hai-Feng Pan, Rui-Xue Leng, Chen-Chen Feng, Gui-Mei Chen, Bao-Zhu Li, Wang-Dong Xu & Dong-Qing Ye

  2. Anhui Provincial Laboratory of Population Health & Major Disease Screening and Diagnosis, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China

    Hai-Feng Pan, Rui-Xue Leng, Chen-Chen Feng, Gui-Mei Chen, Bao-Zhu Li, Wang-Dong Xu & Dong-Qing Ye

  3. Department of Rheumatology, Anhui Provincial Hospital, Hefei, People’s Republic of China

    Xiang-Pei Li

  4. Division of Rheumatology/Immunology, Department of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Song Guo Zheng

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  1. Hai-Feng Pan
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Correspondence to Dong-Qing Ye.

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Pan, HF., Leng, RX., Feng, CC. et al. Expression profiles of Th17 pathway related genes in human systemic lupus erythematosus. Mol Biol Rep 40, 391–399 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-012-2073-2

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