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This concise overview of the development of new therapeutics for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in the past few decades considers the agents that have been tested and highlights the evolution of clinical trial design, assessment tools and outcome measures, and also provides a glimpse of several new innovations that are likely to shape drug discovery in SLE in the near future. Drug discovery in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has lagged behind other rheumatic diseases, in large part because of difficulty in measuring change or improvement in a disorder that involves multiple organ systems to varying degrees at different times. The metrics currently used as primary endpoints are composite indices that rely mainly on disease assessment measures derived before the era of clinical trials of targeted therapies. Only one agent has been approved for the treatment of SLE since 1957. This monograph reviews the evolution of drug development for SLE, problems and pitfalls that have been encountered, and outlines the domains used to evaluate SLE in the clinic. Finally, several initiatives underway to improve clinical trial design are outlined.

Despite advances in understanding systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) pathogenesis, most clinical trials of new targeted therapies have been met with disappointment. The type I IFN pathway is believed to play an important role in SLE, and the proposed involvement of this pathway helps explain the frustration behind the failure at targeting either IFN-α or the type 1 IFN receptor itself. In this issue of the JCI, Furie et al. report on an intriguing phase 1b study that demonstrates an approach for inhibiting this pathway in the skin using an mAB (BIIB059) that targets the blood DC antigen 2 (BDCA-2) receptor on plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs). BIIB059 decreased IFN expression and improved cutaneous lupus disease activity, with a favorable safety profile. Whether or not this strategy will be effective in managing SLE in other organs remains unanswered. However, these results suggest that closing the door on targeting the type 1 IFN pathway in SLE may be premature and highlight the emerging question of whether an organ-specific approach toward lupus trials and treatment should be the wave of the future.

\"The Sjögren's Book is a comprehensive guide for patients and their families about Sjögren's syndrome. This text, which is sponsored by the Sjögren's Syndrome Foundation, provides medical and practical information about the disease including treatment options, coping mechanisms, and questions for patients to ask their doctors. The book also contains a summary of useful medical terms for patients\"-- Provided by publisher.

Background Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have substantial unmet medical need. Baricitinib is a Janus kinase (JAK)1 and 2 inhibitor that was shown to have therapeutic benefit in patients with SLE in a phase II clinical trial. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the median change from baseline in conventional serologic biomarkers in subgroups and the overall population of baricitinib-treated patients with SLE, and the SLE Responder Index-4 (SRI-4) response by normalization of anti-dsDNA. Methods Data were assessed from the phase II trial I4V-MC-JAHH (NCT02708095). The median change from baseline in anti-dsDNA, IgG, and other conventional serologic markers was evaluated over time in patients who had elevated levels of markers at baseline, and in all patients for IgG. Median change from baseline for baricitinib treatments were compared with placebo. Among patients who were anti-dsDNA positive at baseline, SRI-4 responder rate was compared for those who stayed positive or achieved normal levels by week 24. Results Significant decreases of anti-dsDNA antibodies were observed in response to baricitinib 2 mg and 4 mg compared to placebo beginning at weeks 2 (baricitinib 2 mg = − 14.3 IU/mL, placebo = 0.1 IU/mL) and 4 (baricitinib 4 mg = − 17.9 IU/mL, placebo = 0.02 IU/mL), respectively, continuing through week 24 (baricitinib 2 mg = − 29.6 IU/mL, baricitinib 4 mg = − 15.1 IU/mL, placebo=3.0 IU/mL). Significant reductions from baseline of IgG levels were found for baricitinib 4 mg-treated patients compared to placebo at weeks 12 (baricitinib 4 mg = − 0.65 g/L, placebo = 0.09 g/L) and 24 (baricitinib 4 mg = − 0.60 g/L, placebo = − 0.04 g/L). For patients who were anti-dsDNA positive at baseline, no relationship between achieving SRI-4 responder and normalization of anti-dsDNA was observed by week 24. Conclusions Baricitinib treatment resulted in a rapid and sustained significant decrease in anti-dsDNA antibodies compared to placebo among those with positive anti-dsDNA antibodies at baseline, as well as a significant decrease in IgG levels in the 4 mg group at weeks 12 and 24. These data suggest that baricitinib may influence B cell activity in SLE. Further studies are needed to evaluate if reductions in anti-dsDNA levels with baricitinib treatment reflect the impact of baricitinib on B cell activity. Trial registration NCT02708095 .

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients are 90% women and over three times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than women in the general population. Chest pain with no obstructive cardiac disease is associated with coronary microvascular disease (CMD), where narrowing of the small blood vessels can lead to ischemia, and frequently reported by SLE patients. Using whole blood RNA samples, we asked whether gene signatures discriminate SLE patients with coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD) on cardiac MRI (n = 4) from those without (n = 7) and whether any signaling pathway is linked to the underlying pathobiology of SLE CMD. RNA-seq analysis revealed 143 differentially expressed (DE) genes between the SLE and healthy control (HC) groups, with virus defense and interferon (IFN) signaling being the key pathways identified as enriched in SLE as expected. We next conducted a comparative analysis of genes differentially expressed in SLE–CMD and SLE–non-CMD relative to HC samples. Our analysis highlighted differences in IFN signaling, RNA sensing and ADP-ribosylation pathways between SLE–CMD and SLE–non-CMD. This is the first study to investigate possible gene signatures associating with CMD in SLE, and our data strongly suggests that distinct molecular mechanisms underly vascular changes in CMD and non-CMD involvement in SLE.

This 24-week randomized, open-label, noninferiority trial compared oral mycophenolate mofetil with monthly intravenous cyclophosphamide as induction therapy for active lupus nephritis. Mycophenolate mofetil appeared more effective than intravenous cyclophosphamide in inducing remission of lupus nephritis, with a more favorable safety profile. Mycophenolate mofetil appeared to be more effective than intravenous cyclophosphamide in inducing remission of lupus nephritis, with a more favorable safety profile. Intravenous cyclophosphamide has been the standard of care for treating severe lupus glomerulonephritis 1 ; however, its use is limited by potentially severe toxic effects including bone marrow suppression, hemorrhagic cystitis, opportunistic infections, malignant diseases, and premature gonadal failure. 2 Clinical trials of treatment with intermittent intravenous cyclophosphamide combined with corticosteroids show greater long-term renal survival but not overall survival, as compared with treatment with corticosteroids alone. 3 – 6 Furthermore, failure to achieve remission, which is associated with an increased rate of progression to renal failure, is reported in 18 to 57 percent of patients who received cyclophosphamide. 7 – 10 Mycophenolate mofetil, an immunosuppressive . . .

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease in which type I interferons (IFN) play a key role. The IFN response can be triggered when oxidized DNA engages the cytosolic DNA sensing platform cGAS-STING, but the repair mechanisms that modulate this process and govern disease progression are unclear. To gain insight into this biology, we interrogated the role of oxyguanine glycosylase 1 (OGG1), which repairs oxidized guanine 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG), in the pristane-induced mouse model of SLE. mice showed increased influx of Ly6C monocytes into the peritoneal cavity and enhanced IFN-driven gene expression in response to short-term exposure to pristane. Loss of was associated with increased auto-antibodies (anti-dsDNA and anti-RNP), higher total IgG, and expression of interferon stimulated genes (ISG) to longer exposure to pristane, accompanied by aggravated skin pathology such as hair loss, thicker epidermis, and increased deposition of IgG in skin lesions. Supporting a role for type I IFNs in this model, skin lesions of mice had significantly higher expression of type I IFN genes ( , and ). In keeping with loss of resulting in dysregulated IFN responses, enhanced basal and cGAMP-dependent expression was observed in BMDMs from mice. Use of the STING inhibitor, H151, reduced both basal and cGAMP-driven increases, indicating that OGG1 regulates expression through the cGAS-STING pathway. Finally, in support for a role for OGG1 in the pathology of cutaneous disease, reduced expression in monocytes associated with skin involvement in SLE patients and the expression of was significantly lower in lesional skin compared with non-lesional skin in patients with Discoid Lupus. Taken together, these data support an important role for OGG1 in protecting against IFN production and SLE skin disease.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic, remitting, and relapsing, inflammatory disease involving multiple organs, which exhibits abnormalities of both the innate and adaptive immune responses. A limited number of transcriptomic studies have characterized the gene pathways involved in SLE in an attempt to identify the key pathogenic drivers of the disease. In order to further advance our understanding of the pathogenesis of SLE, we used a novel Bayesian network algorithm to hybridize knowledge- and data-driven methods, and then applied the algorithm to build an SLE gene network using transcriptomic data from 1,760 SLE patients' RNA from the two tabalumab Phase III trials (ILLUMINATE-I & -II), the largest SLE RNA dataset to date. Further, based on the gene network, we carried out hub- and key driver-gene analyses for gene prioritization. Our analyses identified that the JAK-STAT pathway genes, including JAK2, STAT1, and STAT2, played essential roles in SLE pathogenesis, and reaffirmed the recent discovery of pathogenic relevance of JAK-STAT signaling in SLE. Additionally, we showed that other genes, such as IRF1, IRF7, PDIA4, FAM72C, TNFSF10, DHX58, SIGLEC1, and PML, may be also important in SLE and serve as potential therapeutic targets for SLE. In summary, using a hybridized network construction approach, we systematically investigated gene-gene interactions based on their transcriptomic profiles, prioritized genes based on their importance in the network structure, and revealed new insights into SLE activity.