RNA-seq study reveals unique transcriptome expression in systemic lupus erythematosus patients with distinct autoantibody profile. Homo sapiens

Systemic lupus erythematosus patients exhibit remarkable heterogeneity in clinical manifestations and autoantibody repertoires. This complexity poses major barrier in diagnosis and effective treatment of SLE. To address this we studied the SLE patients in groups categorized on the basis of distinct sera autoantibodies. SLE patients were segregated into three group based on the presence of autoantibodies against i) dsDNA only ii) ENA (extractable nuclear antigens) only or iii) both. Overall design: The mRNA profiles of each SLE patient sample and controls were generated by deep sequencing, using Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform.