Abstract: Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by recurrent thrombotic events and/or pregnancy morbidity associated with the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL). The role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) has been of particular interest in the pathophysiology of APS.
Objective: We aimed to investigate lncRNA Maternally Expressed Gene 3 (MEG3) in patients with SLE and to assess its association with susceptibility and clinicopathologic features of antiphospholipid syndrome nephropathy.
Patients and methods: A Controlled cross-sectional study was conducted at Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University Hospitals, with 211 females. After the exclusion of 16 patients according to exclusion criteria, 95 patients had SLE and 100 healthy controls. Results: There were significantly higher values of LncRNA MEG3 relative expression level in the SLE group (5.29±2.8) compared to the control group (2.34±0.74), p < 0.001, Among patients with SLE, there were significantly higher values in APS groups (6.65±3.58) compared to non-APS group (4.5±1.97) p < 0.001. There were significant positive correlations between lncRNA MEG3 relative expression level and ESR, serum creatinine, LA, ACL -IgG, ACL -IgM, leukocyturia, and erythrocyturia. However, there were significant negative correlations between lncRNA MEG3 relative expression level and e GFR, C3, and hemoglobin. Interestingly, we further evaluated our results by linear regression test our results showed that serum creatinine, LA, ACL -IgM, C3, hemoglobin, and ACL -IgG were independently correlated with lncRNA MEG3 relative expression level among APL patients.
Conclusions: LncRNA MEG3 relative expression level was significantly higher in SLE in particular APS group compared to control group and significantly positively correlated with ESR, serum creatinine, LA, ACL -IgG, ACL -IgM, leukocyturia, and erythrocyturia.