Urinary T cells represent a reliable noninvasive biomarker for proliferative Lupus nephritis (LN). Little is known about the presence of T cell subsets, B cells and macrophages in the urine although they may further improve the validity of urinary cellular biomarkers for LN.
We analyzed contemporaneous blood and urine samples of patients with active LN (n = 19), other Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) patients (n = 79) and urine samples of patients with diabetic nephropathy (DN; n = 14) and anti-neutrophil cytoplasmatic antibody (ANCA) associated vasculitis (AAV; n = 11) by flow cytometry.
Numbers of urinary T cells, B cells and macrophages correlated with disease activity and were significantly higher in the active LN group. Urinary T cells showed excellent distinction of patients with active LN, CD8+ T cells (AUC of ROC = 1.000) and CD4+ T cells (AUC = 0.9969) alike. CD19+ B cells (AUC = 0.7823) and CD14+ macrophages (AUC = 0.9066), as well as the clinical standard proteinuria (AUC = 0.9201), failed to reach these high standards. Patients with DN or AAV also showed increased urinary cell counts, although the CD4/CD8-ratio was significantly lower in SLE compared to in DN (p = 0.0006). Urinary CD4+ T cells of active LN patients proved to be mainly of effector memory phenotype and expressed significantly more CD40L and ki67 than corresponding blood cells. Urinary Treg counts correlated with disease activity.
Despite of detectable urinary cell counts for B cells and macrophages, T cells remain the best urinary cellular biomarker for LN. A low CD4/CD8-ratio seems to be characteristic for LN.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 07 May 2015.
All research outputs
#3,791,851
of 27,781,301 outputs
Outputs from Arthritis Research & Therapy
#821
of 3,591 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#44,044
of 282,581 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Arthritis Research & Therapy
#14
of 81 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,781,301 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,591 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 282,581 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 81 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its contemporaries.
