Ryan M Baxter, Christine S Wang, Josselyn E Garcia-Perez, Daniel S Kong, Brianne M Coleman, Valentyna Larchenko, Ronald P Schuyler, Conner Jackson, Tusharkanti Ghosh, Pratyaydipta Rudra, Debdas Paul, Manfred Claassen, Rosemary Rochford, John C Cambier, Debashis Ghosh, Jennifer C Cooper, Mia J Smith, Elena W Y Hsieh
INTRODUCTION: Most childhood-onset SLE patients (cSLE) develop lupus nephritis (cLN), but only a small proportion achieve complete response to current therapies. The prognosis of children with LN and end-stage renal disease is particularly dire. Mortality rates within the first five years of renal replacement therapy may reach 22%. Thus, there is urgent need to decipher and target immune mechanisms that drive cLN. Despite the clear role of autoantibody production in SLE, targeted B cell therapies such as rituximab (anti-CD20) and belimumab (anti-BAFF) have shown only modest efficacy in cLN...
2023: Frontiers in Immunology