Development of a glucocorticoid exposure signature for SLE

We performed RNA-seq on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy human donors treated with interferon alpha 2a (1000IU/mL) +/- dexamethasone 10^-7M, with the aims of studying interactions between IFN and glucocorticoid induced gene expression, as well as identifying potential transcripts that may be used as a glucocorticoid exposure signature in clinical practice in patients with SLE. Transcripts identified from RNA-seq data were analysed in SLE patient data sets to validate clinical utility. We found that dexamethasone minimally impacts on interferon stimulated gene expression however IFN altered gene transcription of many previously reported glucocorticoid induced genes. Examination of IFN and dexamethasone induced gene expression changes in human PBMC.