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Coordinated Induction Of Antimicrobial Response Factors In Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Prathapan Ayyappan, Robert Z. Harms, Jane H. Buckner, Nora E. Sarvetnick

Journal Articles: Surgery

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by dysregulated autoantibody production and complement activation leading to multi-organ damage. The disease is associated with increased intestinal permeability. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that SLE subjects have increased systemic exposure to bacteria. Since bacteria induce the expression of antimicrobial response factors (ARFs), we measured the levels of a series of clinically relevant ARFs in the plasma of SLE subjects. We found that levels of sCD14, lysozyme, and CXCL16 were significantly elevated in SLE subjects. A strong positive correlation was also observed between sCD14 and SELENA-SLEDAI score. Interestingly, …