Systemic lupus erythematosus is a chronic autoimmune disorder that predominantly affects women of childbearing age. Lupus-associated glomerulonephritis is a major cause of mortality in these patients. Current treatment protocols for systemic lupus erythematosus include cyclophosphamide, prednisolone, azathioprine, and mycophenolate mofetil. However, in mice none of these agents alone or in comb...

UNLABELLED Lupus nephritis is one of the most serious manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). African Americans generally have a more severe presentation and more often progress to end stage renal disease (ESRD) than Caucasians. Several studies point to higher creatinine, low complement levels, thrombocytopenia, anemia, hypertension, and proliferative glomerulonephritis as predict...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Lupus nephritis is an organ manifestation of systemic autoimmunity. Current treatment algorithms are still based on unselective immunosuppressive drugs. There is hope that highly selective biological drugs could be as or even more effective but less toxic. A profound understanding of the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis is necessary to identify the optimal molecular targets. ME...

INTRODUCTION Autoantibodies against C1q correlate with lupus nephritis. We compared titers of anti-C1q and anti-dsDNA in 70 systemic lupus erythematosus patients with (n = 15) or without (n = 55) subsequent biopsy-proven lupus nephritis. METHODS The 15 patients with subsequent lupus nephritis had anti-C1q assays during clinical flares (mean Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index ...

Class I PI3K catalyzes formation of 3-poly-phosphoinositides. The family is divided into IA isoforms, activated by Tyr kinases and the IB isoform (PI3Kgamma), activated by G protein-coupled receptors. Mutations that affect PI3K are implicated in chronic inflammation, although the differential contribution of each isoform to pathology has not been elucidated. Enhanced activation of class IA-PI3K...

Membranous nephropathy (MN) is the most common cause of nephrotic syndrome in adults in the UK. In most cases, the aetiology remains unknown, although recent data suggested a clear mechanism of pathogenesis. In approximately a quarter of cases, however, a presumed cause is found, such as systemic lupus nephritis, malignancy, hepatitis B and various drugs. Here, we present a patient who develope...

MRL/MpJ-Fas(lpr)/J (MRL/lpr) mice represent a well-established mouse model of human systemic lupus erythematosus. MRL/lpr mice homozygous for the spontaneous lymphoproliferation mutation (lpr) are characterized by systemic autoimmunity, massive lymphadenopathy associated with proliferation of aberrant T cells, splenomegaly, hypergammaglobulinemia, arthritis, and fatal immune complex-mediated gl...

Chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) induced in (C57BL/6 x DBA/2) F1 (BDF1) mice by the injection of DBA/2 mouse spleen cells represents histopathological changes associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and Sjogren's syndrome (SS), as indicated by glomerulonephritis, lymphocyte infiltration into the periportal area of the liver and salivary glands...

Clonotypes of IgG anti-DNA antibodies were studied by isoelectric focusing in various autoimmune mice with or without lethal lupus nephritis. MRL/MpJ-lpr/lpr mice exhibited the most heterogeneous spectrotypes of anti-DNA antibodies in the pH range from 6.5 to 8.5, with marked variation in individual mice. Female (NZB X NZW)F1 mice expressed rather uniform DNA-binding bands composed of at least ...