Serum and Urinary Level of High Mobility Group Box 1 Protein in Patients with Lupus Nephritis

Abstract

ystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease affecting predominately women. It is characterized by various clinical manifestations, among these manifestations, renal involvement. Lupus nephritis is regarded as one of the most severe organ manifestations in SLE affecting approximately 35% to 50% of patients with lupus. The aim of this study was to assess serum and urinary levels of HMGB-1 in correlation to renal histopathology, disease activity and organ damage in SLE patients with active nephritis. Our study was conducted on 25 SLE patients with nephritis all of them fulfilled the ACR 1982 revised criteria for classification of SLE (Hochberg, 1997) In our results, a positive correlation was found between general disease activity using Bilag score and serum HMGB1 after follow up. This suggested that HMGB1 relates with the activity of the disease. Also after follow up, our study showed significant association between degree of severity of nephritis and levels of serum HMGB1where patients with persistent disease activity showed higher levels compared to patients with mild renal disease activity, a finding that may reflect an association between HMGB1 and severity, activity of nephritis. A positive correlation was found between levels of