Serum Levels Of Chemokines MCAF And RANTES In Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus And Their Clinical Significances

Chemokine is one of the hot spots in cytokine research, four classes of chemokines have been defined by the number and arrangement of the conserved cysteine (Cys) residues of the mature proteins: CXC (or a ), CC (or P ), C (or y ), and CX3C(or 6 ) chemokines. Most of the chemokines belong to CXC and CC subfamilies. According to the characteristic three amino acid sequence ELR (glutamic acid條eucine梐rginine) motif, the CXC chemokines can be further divided into two groups: ELR containing CXC chemokines and non桬LR CXC chemokines. Chemokines mediate their biological activities by binding specifically to target cell surface chemokine receptors that belong to the large family of G protein梒oupled, seven transmembrane (7TM) domain receptors, but various chemokine receptors are known to exhibit overlapping ligand specificities. An important discovery was found in HIV infection research: some of the chemokines (e. g. MIP條 a , MW梚 P , RANTES, SDF條) function as HIV梥upressive factors, and some chemokine receptors (e. g. CXCR4,CCR3,CCR5,CCR2b,US28) were utilized by HIV as co梤eceptors, then HIV have the ability to entry into target cells. Some people whose chemokine receptors (e.g. CCR5,CCR2) were mutant, have the resistance to HIV infection. This suggest that HIV can not utilize 7 the mutant chemokine receptors as co梤eceptors. These findings attract most of the attention of investigators, and many further studies were made in chemokines research. Chemokines play an important role in infiltration of leukocytes at inflamed sites, they also exhibit other activities such as angiogenesis, stimulating cell proliferation, and so on. Chemokines are involved in the pathogenesis of various autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimjiiune connective tissue disease whose etiology is still unknown, characterized by production of amount of autoantibodies, deposition of immune complex and infiltration of feukocytes in involved organs, and finally resulting in dysfunction of involved organs. The study of patients with lupus nephritis indicates that the degree of leukocyte infiltration correlates with the severity of the renal dysfunction. The precise mechanism of leukocyte infiltration remains unclear. Recent findings indicate that chemokines may play an important role in this process. In this study, serum levels of chemokines MCAF/MCP條 and RANTES of 44 patients with SLE and 24 healthy controls were measured. The clinical significances of them and the relationship between serum levels of chemokines and disease activity were also discussed in this paper. Clinical data and Methods 1. Clinical data Twenty梖our healthy controls and 44 patients with SLE were evaluated in this study. All patients fulfilled the American Rheumatism Association 1982 revised criteria for the diagnosis of SLE. The patients included 42 females and 2 males whose age ranged S from 12 to 52 with an average of 32.25?1.O5(SD) years, duration from 1 month to 21 years. The healthy controls included 20 females and 4 males whose age ranged from 16 to 52 with an average of 32.67眑1.65(SD) years. The age...