The expression of autophagy and related genes in patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus / 中华风湿病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the autophagy and the expression of its related genes in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients.Methods Patients with newly onset or recently-diagnosed SLE (n=20) were enrolled.RA patients (n=10) and healthy blood donors (n=10) were used as controls.PBMCs from all subjects were immediately isolated by Ficoll-Hypaque density gradient centrifugation.And then monocytes were removed by wall sticking method.The morphology was observed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM).Messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of Beclin 1 and microtubule-associated protein 1-light chain 3 (MAPLC3) were determined by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and real-time quantitative RT-PCR respectively.Results TEM showed autophagic phenomenon in PBMCs from active SLE.On the mRNA level,expression of Beclin 1 and LC3 was significantly increased in fresh isolated SLE cells as compared with RA or healthy donor's PBMCs.Conclusion Based on these results,we can conclude that autophagy occurs in active SLE and the expression of its related genes is significantly higher in active SLE than in RA or normal controls.The enhanced autophagy may indicate its role in the pathogenesis of SLE.