[Characteristics of serum autoantibodies in patients with lupus nephritis and tubulointerstitial damage].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the tubulointerstitial damage (TID) in lupus nephritis (LN) and investigate the relationship between autoantibodies and TID in lupus nephritis. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a comprehensive tertiary hospital in Peking University Shenzhen Hospital. From March 2012 to July 2021, LN patients who performed renal biopsy were enrolled in the study. Clinical, laboratory and pathology data were collected. We classified the patients into none-or-mild group and moderate-to-severe groups according to the severity of interstitial fibrosis (IF) /tubular atrophy (TA) or tubulointerstitial inflammation (TII). The t test, U test and Chi-square test were used for statistical analysis as appropriate. RESULTS: A total of 226 patients were included, of who 190 (84%) were female with a median age of 32 (26, 39) years. 89% (201/226) of the patients who pathologically proved to be proliferative LN by renal biopsy. The frequency of moderate-to-severe TII and moderate-to-severe IF/TA was 30% (67/226) and 34% (76/226) respectively. For autoantibodies, the patients with moderate-to-severe TII had a lower rate of positive serum anti-ribonucleoprotein (anti-RNP) antibodies than the patients with none-or-mild TII (34% vs. 51%), and moderate-to-severe IF/TA had a lower rate of positive anti-ribosomal P protein (anti-P) antibodies than patients with none-or-mild IF/TA (19% vs. 33%). For other clinical indicators, the patients with moderate-to-severe TII and moderate-to-severe IF/TA were more often combined with proliferative LN, hypertension and anemia than the patients with none-or-mild TII and none-or-mild IF/TA, respectively. The patients with moderate-to-severe TII had higher serum creatinine values and lower glomerular filtration rates than the patients with none-or-mild TII. The patients with moderate-to-severe IF/TA had higher serum creatinine values, and lower glomerular filtration rates than the patients with none-or-mild IF/TA. CONCLUSION: In patients with LN in Southern China, anti-RNP antibodies and anti-P antibodies may be potential protective factors for TII and IF/TA, respectively. More studies are needed to identify the risk factors of lupus patients with TID and investigate the correlation between autoantibodies and TID, which are critical for developing better preventive and therapeutic strategies to improve the survival rate of LN.

Characterisation and expression of a novel holotype crystal protein gene, cry56Aa1, from Bacillus thuringiensis strain Ywc2-8.

Bacillus thuringiensis isolate Ywc2-8, from soil in Sichuan Basin in western China, contains a spherical crystal harbouring two insecticidal crystal proteins with masses of 70 kDa and 130 kDa. A novel cry-type gene, encoding a 664 amino acid protein with 34% homology to cry29Aa1, was found and cloned from this strain. This gene belongs to a novel holotype cry and is designated as cry56Aa1. It was expressed in E. coli. Insecticidal activity assays showed that recombinant Cry56Aa1 was toxic to both Dipteran (Aedes aegypti) and Lepidopteran (Plutella xylostella and Helicoverpa armigera) pests. Cloning of this gene may help to overcome the increasing resistance of pests to currently used insecticides.