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| Rachel Mende |
Latest
research at Monash University reveals a particular protein found in the blood
of lupus patients may be a potential biomarker of kidney disease.
Co-authored
by final year Monash medical students Rachel Mende and Emily Lin, both
supervised by Dr Tali Lang, the study was published last week in Frontiers in Immunology.
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), or lupus, is an incurable
systemic autoimmune illness, which predominantly affects women of child-bearing
age.
“This study is the largest to date which examines
clinical associations between SLE disease parameters and two particular blood proteins:
IL-18 and IL-1β,” said first author Rachel, who undertook the
research as a BMedSc(Hons) student at the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash
Health (SCS).
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| Emily Lin |
“We measured these two proteins in the blood of lupus patients and
found that increased serum IL-18 was associated with the presence of kidney
disease and irreversible organ damage while there was no association between
serum IL-1β and SLE clinical outcomes.”
Postdoctoral Research Fellow from the Rheumatology Research
Group, Dr Fabien Vincent said the data suggests that serum IL-18 and IL-1β have
different clinical implications in lupus.
“Future research investigating whether lupus
patients with kidney disease may benefit from a drug targeting IL-18
would be of value,” said Dr Vincent, co-lead author on the paper.
The research team thanks all the patients
involved in the study, and acknowledges the Australian Lupus Registry and
Biobank for providing the clinical data sets and patient samples.
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