ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the expression levels of phospholipase C(PLC)-γ1 and PLC-γ2 in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE),and explore the relations between these genes expression levels and disease activity of SLE.Methods Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method was used to detect the expression levels of PLC-γ1 and PLC-γ2 in 30 patients with SLE and 25 controls.The associations between the expression levels of PLC- γ1 and PLC-γ2,complement C3,C4,antidouble stranded DNA antibody and SLEDAI scores in patients with SLE were analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis.Results ①The expression levels of PLC-γ1 and PLC-γ2 in the SLE patients were significantly higher than those of the normal controls (P＜0.01).) The expression levels of PLC-γ1 and PLC-γ2 showed positive correlations with each other (r=0.726,P＜0.01 ).③ The expression levels of PLC-γ2 were negatively correlated with serum complement C3,C4 (P＜0.05),but positively correlated with anti-double stranded DNA antibody,at the same time,they were not correlated with SLEDAI scores (P＞0.05).There was no correlation between complement C3,C4,anti-double stranded DNA antibody and the expression levels of PLC-γ1 (r=0.220,0.256,0.116,P＞0.05),but the expression levels of PLC-γ1 were positively correlated with SLEDAI scores.Conclusion We have shown that the expression levels of PLC-γ1 and PLC-γ2 is positively correlated and the PLC-γ1 and PLC-γ2 in patients with SLE are significantly higher than those of the normal controls.PLC-γ2 is negatively associated with complement C3,C4,PLC-γ1 is positively correlated with SLEDAI scores.Both PLC-γ1 and PLC-γ2 are be helpful in evaluating SLE disease activity and severity.
ABSTRACT
A retrospective analysis was carried out in 10 antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) positive patients treated with propylthiouracil (PTU). Six patients were diagnosed to be suffering from vasculitis via lung or renal biopsy. All 10 patients′ symptom disappeared and the titer of ANCA fell down after discontinuing PTU or using immunosuppressive agents.