Expression and significance of B lymphocyte stimulator and BAFF-receptor in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus / 中国综合临床

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the expression and significance of B lymphocyte stimulator (Blys) and its receptor BAFF (BAFF-R) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Methods The expression of Blys and BAFF-R was measured by flow cytometry in 90 pa-tients with SLE,which was compared with that of 45 healthy controls. The relationships between the expression of Blys, BAFF-R and other laboratory parameters as well as disease activity were analyzed. Results The expression of Blys and BAFF-R in PBMCs from patients with SLE was significantly elevated compared to healthy controls (P <0.001), so did the active group (P < 0.001) and inactive group (P < 0.001 and P < 0.01). The expression of Blys in PBMCs from active SLE patients was higher than that of inactive patients (P <0.05). However,there was no statisti-cal difference of BAFF-R between the two groups. The expression of Blys in PBMCs was positively related to SLEDAI (r =0.728,P <0.001) ,IgG and IgM(r=0.691,P<0.001 and r =0.453,P<0.01) ,but negatively related to C3 and CA (r = -0.510, P < 0.001 and r = -0.312, P < 0.05). The expression of Blys in dsDNA positive group was higher than those of dsDNA negative group (P < 0.01). The expression of Blys and BAFF-R in Cl qAb positive group was higher than those of ClqAb negative group as well (P <0.01). Conclusion The expression of Blys and its receptor BAFF-R in PBMCs from SLE is elevated ,which may reflect the disease activity and is related to the pro-duction of autoantibody. They might be involved in the pathogenesis of SLE.