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Anti-C1q antibody is a valuable biological marker for prediction of renal pathological characteristics in lupus nephritis

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the association of serum anti-C1q antibody levels with renal pathological characteristics in SLE patients with lupus nephritis. Fifty-two patients with biopsy-proven lupus nephritis were enrolled. Serum anti-C1q levels (units per milliliter) were measured before renal biopsy using ELISA kit. A cross-sectional study analyzed the association of anti-C1q antibody levels with SLE global activity, nephritic activity, and renal histopathology. Thirty-nine of 52 patients (75 %) were positive for anti-C1q antibody. Anti-C1q antibody levels were positively correlated with the values for the SLE Disease Activity Index (r = 0.628, p < 0.001), anti-nucleosome (r = 0.591, p < 0.001), and anti-dsDNA antibody (r = 0.507, p < 0.001), but negatively correlated to serum C3 (r = −0.626, p < 0.001) and C4 (r = −0.57, p < 0.001). The prevalence of anti-C1q in patients with proliferative LN (class III + class IV) was higher than those with mesangial LN (class II), but there is no statistical significance. Among different ISN/RPS classification, serum anti-C1q antibody level was highest in patients with class IV, followed by class III. The concentration of anti-C1q in patients with class IV was higher than those in class II [50.00 (23.00, 97.70) vs 20.25 (7.16, 54.78) U/ml, p<0.05]. The levels of anti-C1q antibody were positively correlated with renal active indices (r = 0.59, p < 0.001) while negatively correlated with chronic indices (r = −0.326, p < 0.05). Moreover, anti-C1q antibody was found to be positively associated with glomerular C1q deposition. These findings indicate that serum anti-C1q antibody is a valuable noninvasive biological marker for prediction of renal histopathology in lupus nephritis. Low or negative anti-C1q antibody titers might influence therapeutic decisions in SLE.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by a grant from Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (no. 090413129) and Educational Department of Anhui Province, China (KJ2009B072).

We appreciate Dr. Hai-Yan Weng, a senior pathologist in our hospital, for her excellent work in the evaluation of renal biopsy specimens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Anhui Provincial Hospital, No 17 Lujiang Road, Hefei, 230001, China

    Zhu Chen, Guo-Sheng Wang & Xiang-Pei Li

  2. Department of Rheumatology, Anqing Municipal Hospital, Anqing, China

    Gui-Hong Wang

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  1. Zhu Chen
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  2. Guo-Sheng Wang
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  3. Gui-Hong Wang
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Correspondence to Xiang-Pei Li.

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Chen, Z., Wang, GS., Wang, GH. et al. Anti-C1q antibody is a valuable biological marker for prediction of renal pathological characteristics in lupus nephritis. Clin Rheumatol 31, 1323–1329 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-012-2017-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-012-2017-1

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