The changes and significance of AhR in lymphocytes in SLE

LIU Ruiqi; YU Haitao; YANG Ximei; WANG Liming; JIN Fengling

doi:10.13431/j.cnki.immunol.j.20170182

Abstract：This study was designed to evaluate the value of aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) in the diagnosis of SLE by exploring the changes of AhR in peripheral blood lymphocytes and its association with disease activity in patients with SLE.Flow cytometry and Real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) were applied to detect AhR expression in 20 SLE cases and 22 healthy controls.And then,the correlation of AhR expression level with SLEDAI-2K,ESR,C3,C4 and CRP were assessed.Data showed that the AhR positive cells in lymphocytes of peripheral blood were significantly increased in SLE patients (10.76±4.52)％,as compared with healthy controls (0.45±0.20)％ (P＜0.01);AhR mRNA level in SLE patients (0.21 ±0.14) was higher than that in healthy controls (0.05±0.01) (P＜0.01).AhR expression level was negatively correlated with C3(r=-0.53,P＜0.05),C4 (r=--0.63,P＜0.05),while positively correlated with ESR (r=0.55,P＜0.05),but showed no correlation with CRP or SLEDAI-2K.Binary Logistic regression analysis showed that SLE was independently related to AhR [EXP(B)=3.337,P=0.001]and ESR [EXP(B)=1.354,P=0.018],and the former has more significant statistical difference than ESR.In conclusion,AhR in peripheral blood lymphocytes can be used to assess the activity of SLE and for the diagnosis of SLE.High expression level of AhR in lymphocytes may be an important factor in SLE development.