Elevated soluble Tim-3 correlates with disease activity of systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract

T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain-containing molecule-3(Tim-3) has been found to play important roles in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), but whether sTim-3 is involved in the development of SLE remains unknown. In this study, we firstly observed an increased expression of plasma sTim-3 in SLE patients, especially active SLE patients. The plasma sTim-3 levels were positively correlated with anti-dsDNA, SLEDAI score, ESR, and urine albumin. The plasma sTim-3 levels were negatively correlated with C3 and C4. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) values indicated that the plasma sTim-3 level was significantly discriminative of early active SLE from stable SLE and HC with high sensitivity and specificity. The present results suggest that sTim-3 might serve as a potential biomarker for promising the disease activity of SLE.

Keywords:

• sTim-3
• disease activity
• systemic lupus erythematosus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Nature Science Foundation of China [81601419] and the Key Research and Development Plan of Shandong Province [2019GSF108242, 2019GSF108013].