Systemic lupus erythmatosus

Pregnancy is one of the most challenging processes the human body is exposed to: the healthy mother can carry to term a genetically different new-born, while her immune system adapts to tolerate this new status and avoids rejection. In autoimmune disorders, motherhood is even more challenging, with additional medical counselling, mother care, and foetus development checks being necessary. While the aspects of supplementary mother care and pregnancy progress tracking are associated with well-established medical procedures and protocols, counselling, be it pre- or post-conception, is still underestimated and scarcely applied...

Lupus nephritis (LN) is a complicated autoimmune disease marked by out-of-balance of immunological reactivity and immune tolerance. With the advance of immunotherapy in human disease, regulatory T (Treg) cells serve a crucial function in immune tolerance regulation and are characterized with suppression function as one of the most important research hotspots for autoimmunity diseases. In recent years, Treg cells have shown the robust potential for treatment to autoimmunity diseases like type I diabetic mellitus and rheumatoid arthritis...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are evolutionally conserved, single-stranded RNAs that regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level by disrupting translation. MiRNAs are key players in variety of biological processes that regulate the differentiation, development and activation of immune cells in both innate and adaptive immunity. The disruption and dysfunction of miRNAs can perturb the immune response, stimulate the release of inflammatory cytokines and initiate the production of autoantibodies, and contribute to the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythmatosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), and multiple sclerosis (MS)...

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Oral Cancer (OC) is a serious and growing problem which constitutes a huge burden on people in more and less economically developed countries alike. The scenario is clearly depicted from the increase in the expected number of new cases in the US diagnosed with OC from 49,670 people in 2016, to 49,750 cases in 2017. The situation is even more alarming in India, with 75,000 to 80,000 new cases being reported every year, thus making it the OC capital of the world. Leukoplakia, erythroplakia, oral lichen planus, oral submucous fibrosis, discoid lupus erythmatosus, hereditary disorders such as dyskeratosis congenital and epidermolisys bullosa are highlighted by WHO expert working group as the predisposing factors increasing the risk of OC...

We review the structures and functions of ADARs and their involvements in human diseases. ADAR1 is widely expressed, particularly in the myeloid component of the blood system, and plays a prominent role in promiscuous editing of long dsRNA. Missense mutations that change ADAR1 residues and reduce RNA editing activity cause Aicardi-Goutières Syndrome, a childhood encephalitis and interferonopathy that mimics viral infection and resembles an extreme form of Systemic Lupus Erythmatosus (SLE). In Adar1 mouse mutant models aberrant interferon expression is prevented by eliminating interferon activation signaling from cytoplasmic dsRNA sensors, indicating that unedited cytoplasmic dsRNA drives the immune induction...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Imaging studies suggest potential changes to the classification and assessment of inflammatory musculoskeletal lupus. This is important because of the burden of disease but the potential for new targeted therapies. RECENT FINDINGS: Using our current classification and treatment, musculoskeletal symptoms continue to impact significantly on quality of life and work disability. Ultrasound and MRI studies suggested that new approaches to the diagnosis, classification, and evaluation of these symptoms are needed...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a prototypic systemic autoimmune disease. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is cytotoxic to a wide variety of transformed cells, but not to most normal cells. This study measures serum levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-6 and 10 and soluble TRAIL (sTRAIL) in patients with SLE and assesses their relation to severity of the disease. The study included 70 SLE patients and 20 healthy controls. Patients were diagnosed according to criteria proposed by the American Rheumatism Association for classification of SLE and disease activity was scored using the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group (BILAG-2004)...

Thalidomide and its derivatives are immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) known for their sedative, teratogenic, anti-angiogenic, and anti-inflammatory properties. Commonly used in the treatment of cancers such as multiple myeloma and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), IMiDs have also been used in the treatment of an inflammatory skin pathology associated with Hansen's disease/leprosy. They have also shown promise in the treatment of autoimmune disorders including systemic lupus erythmatosus (SLE) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)...

Morvan syndrome (MoS) is a rare paraneoplastic autoimmune disorder characterized by peripheral nerve hyperexcitability, autonomic dysfunction, and sleep disorders. Systemic lupus erythmatosus (SLE) cooccurs in 6-10% of patients with thymoma. It may occur before, concurrently with, or after thymoma diagnosis. This paper reports the first case of cooccurrence of SLE, thymic carcinoma, and MoS. The cooccurrence of SLE, thymoma, and MoS delineates the generalized autoimmunity process. Symptoms of both MoS and SLE abated upon tumor resection...

Antiphospholipid syndrome is an immune-mediated acquired disorder characterized by vein and/or artery thromboses and obstetrical complications associated with the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies in the blood. aPL include anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL), antiβ2glycoproteinI (antiβ2GPI), and lupus anticoagulant (LAC). A primitive idiopathic form and a secondary form of APS are recognized. The latter, observed mostly in patients affected by systemic lupus erythmatosus (SLE), has been described in numerous other autoimmune diseases...

Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have an increased susceptibility to bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic infections. Cryptococcal infection of the central nervous system (CNS) is a rare but often fatal complication of SLE. Here we describe a case of cryptococcal meningitis in a female patient with active SLE, who was successfully treated with amphotericin B. This case suggests that the clinical findings of SLE patients with cryptococcal meningitis are non-specific and misleading, and early use of amphotericin B has a good response...

Given the importance of monocytes in pathogenesis of infectious and other inflammatory disorders, delineating functional and phenotypic characterization of monocyte subsets has emerged as a critical requirement. Although human monocytes have been subdivided into three different populations based on surface expression of CD14 and CD16, published reports suffer from contradictions with respect to subset phenotypes and function. This has been attributed to discrepancies in reliable gating strategies for flow cytometric characterization and purification protocols contributing to significant changes in receptor expression...

A 36-year-old woman had an 8-year history of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and was being treated with 10 mg/d of prednisone. She presented with a 6-month history of intermittent fever and multiple painful multi skin erythematous macules in her button, hips and extremities that had slowly enlarged to 8 cm×4 cm in diameter. The lesions started as painful erythematous macules, which eventually ulcerated and scared. Laboratory tests showed leukopenia, protenuria, positive anti-double strand DNA and hypocomplementemia...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterised by multi-system manifestations. It is regarded as the prototypal connective tissue disease, where the key pathogenesis relates to a dysfunctional immune system that results in over-production of various autoantibodies. Most of its pathology is mediated by either direct or indirect effects of these autoantibodies, as well as other components of the innate and adaptive immune systems.

Systemic lupus erythmatosus (SLE) presents many challenges in pregnancy for the midwife who is increasingly being relied upon to act as coordinator of care, guiding women with complex and high risk medical conditions through maternity pathways, as part of an integrated team. The disease and its pharmacological management are implicated in a range of complications. Primary care provision involves using skilful clinical observation of abnormal signs and symptoms and referring appropriately. The midwife plays a vital role in facilitating primary care provision and all the appropriate support, whilst ensuring that evidence based information is readily available...

In this paper a new method based on artificial neural networks (ANN), is introduced for identifying pathogenic antibodies in Systemic Lupus Erythmatosus (SLE). dsDNA binding antibodies have been implicated in the pathogenesis of this autoimmune disease. In order to identify these dsDNA binding antibodies, the protein sequences of 42 dsDNA binding and 608 non-dsDNA binding antibodies were extracted from Kabat database and encoded using a physicochemical property of their amino acids namely Hydrophilicity. Encoded antibodies were used as the training patterns of a general regression neural network (GRNN)...

A 20-year-old woman, with systemic lupus erythmatosus complicated by steroid-and immunosuppressant-resistant bilateral pleural effusion, was admitted to the emergency room because of dyspnea and fever. Chest Xray film revealed bilateral massive pleural effusion. Bilateral thoracocentesis yielded fluid with chyle. Conservative treatment including intravenous hyper-alimentation and continuous drainage were performed but with no remarkable improvement. She underwent thoracoscopy-aided ligation of the thoracic duct...

Carbonic anhydrase II (CA II) has an important role in thyroid hormone synthesis via regulating iodide (I-) transport across thyroidal cell membranes and the existence of autoantibodies against CA I and/or CA II have been shown in sera from patient with various autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren's Syndrome, Systemic Lupus Erythmatosus, type 1 diabetes, primary biliary cirrhosis and ulcerative colitis. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of anti-CA I and CA II antibodies in autoimmune thyroid disease and the relationships between the autoantibodies and other clinical parameters...

BACKGROUND: Systemic lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a rheumatic autoimmune disease characterized by multisystem organ involvement and by high titers of auto antibodies against several nuclear and cytoplasmic antigens. Numerous abnormalities of the cytokine network have been described in patients suffering from SLE. However the role of cytokines in different organ involvement is not yet well defined. OBJECTIVE: To determine if levels of Interlukin-6 (IL-6) and Tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha) correlate with SLE disease activity in Egyptian SLE patients and more specifically with hematological involvement...