[A study of T cell recombination excision circles levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of systemic lupus erythematosus patients].

OBJECTIVE: To compare the T cell receptor recombination excision cycle (TREC) levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with normal age- and gender- matched controls. To investigate the correlations between TREC levels of SLE patients and their clinical features. METHODS: We studied TREC levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of 21 SLE patients and 22 normal age- and sex-matched controls. TREC concentration was determined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (real-time qPCR) as the number of TREC copies/1000 PBMCs. The clinical features of the SLE patients such as systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity index (SLEDAI), ESR, C reaction protein (CRP), ANA, anti-dsDNA and complement levels and organ involvement were recorded and assessed. RESULTS: SLE patients had lower TREC levels [(9.6±7.5) copies/1000 PBMC] than controls [(16.1±11.1) copies/1000 PBMC, P=0.033]. There was an inverse correlation between age and TREC levels in controls (r=-0.614, P=0.002) but not in SLE patients. There was an inverse correlation between SLEDAI and TREC levels in SLE patients (r=-0.656, P=0.001) and TREC levels seemed to have relations to skin lesions (r=-0.620, P=0.003). No other clinical association was observed between TREC levels and clinical and laboratory SLE manifestations. CONCLUSION: SLE patients had lower TREC levels than normal controls and there is a tendency that TREC level is reversely correlated with disease activity. The decrease PBMC TREC level is indicative of a low proportion of recent thymic emigrant (RTE) in SLE and could be caused by decreased RTE output and/or by increased peripheral T cell proliferation in this disease. The under-representation of RTE in the peripheral T cell pool may play a role in the immune tolerance abnormalities observed in SLE.

[The clinical characteristics of systemic lupus erythematosus associated with coronary artery disease].

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the clinical characteristics of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) associated with coronary artery disease (CHD). METHODS: This is a retrospective analysis. We studied the traditional cardiovascular risk factors, first onset of cardiac events, diagnosis, treatment and activity of the disease in 11 SLE patients with CHD. The results were statistically analyzed using independent-samples test and Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: (1) SLE patients with CHD had an average age of (53.9 +/- 8.1) years old. (2) The mean number of CHD risk factors per patient was 1.3 +/- 0.8. (3) The level of lipids was significantly elevated after therapy with corticosteroids (The P values for TC, LDL-C, HDL-C and TG were 0.013, 0.003, 0.016 and 0.006, respectively). (4) The SLEDAI was 12.0 +/- 10.3 when the first cardiac event happened. (5) SLE patients with CHD often had severe lesions of the coronary artery, manifested as diffuse stenosis and severe calcification. CONCLUSIONS: Conventional CHD risk factors cannot fully account for premature CHD in SLE patients. SLE patients with CHD often had severe lesions of the coronary artery and poor prognosis, so we should treat it as early as possible to delay the progress of CHD and use non-invasive examinations for early diagnosis in order to improve the prognosis.