Urinary FOXP3 mRNA in patients with lupus nephritis--relation with disease activity and treatment response

Regulatory T lymphocytes (Tregs) probably play an important role in the pathogenesis of SLE.

We quantified messenger RNA (mRNA) expression of FOXP3, a critical regulator for the development and function of Tregs, in the urinary sediment of 25 subjects with active lupus nephritis (LN), 17 with inactive lupus and 7 healthy subjects.

We found that the expression level of FOXP3 was significantly higher in urine from patients with active LN than from subjects with inactive lupus and healthy controls (24.5 +/- 45.8 vs 0.8 +/- 1.0 vs 0.6 +/- 0.8 copy; P < 0.001). In the active group, urinary FOXP3 mRNA expression level was higher in patients with proliferative LN than non-proliferative nephritis (34.6 +/- 56.3 vs 2.7 +/- 2.1 copy; P = 0.019). Urinary FOXP3 mRNA level significantly correlated with SLEDAI (r = 0.668; P < 0.001) and proteinuria (r = 0.414; P = 0.006). In the active group, urinary FOXP3 mRNA level also significantly correlated with histological activity index (r = 0.541; P = 0.009) and marginally with intra-renal FOXP3 mRNA level (r = 0.360; P = 0.08). Urinary FOXP3 mRNA in patients with no response to therapy was higher than those with partial response or complete response (57.6 +/- 69.8 vs 2.4 +/- 1.9 copies; P = 0.02).

We concluded that urinary FOXP3 mRNA is markedly up-regulated in patients with active LN, and the level of expression is closely correlated with the clinical and histological disease activity. A high urinary FOXP3 mRNA in LN predicts a poor therapeutic response. Measurement of FOXP3 mRNA in urine sediment may be a non-invasive biomarker for assessing the severity and risk stratification in LN.