The levels of urinary neopterin in 30 patients with SLE were determined by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatgraphy(HPLC). The results showed: (1 ) the levels of urinary neopterin in 30 patients with SLE were significantly higher than those in 20 controls. (2) The concentrations of urinary neopterin in SLE patients were significantly correlated with the disease activity, they decreased after efficacious treatment with reduced disease activity. (3) There was significant positive correlation between urinary neopterin concentration and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, but there were no statistical relations between urinary neopterin levels and ANA, antibody to ds-DNA, or plasma C3 levels. These results indicate that urinary neopterin may be used as an index for the assessment of disease activity in patients with SLE and monitoring therapeutic effect.

Nearly a quarter of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and remains long-term asymptomatic infection. Rv2626c is a latent infection-related protein regulated by DosR of M. tuberculosis. In this study, the Rv2626c protein was prokaryotically expressed and purified, and its immunobiological characteristics were analyzed using RAW264.7 cells and mice as infection models. SDS-PAGE and Western blotting analysis showed that the Rv2626c-His fusion protein was mainly expressed in soluble form and specifically reacted with the rabbit anti-H37RV polyclonal serum. In addition, we found that the Rv2626c protein bound to the surface of RAW264.7 macrophages and up-regulated the production of NO. Moreover, the Rv2626c protein significantly induced the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-6 and MCP-1, and induced strong Th1-tendency immune response. These results may help to reveal the pathogenic mechanism of M. tuberculosis and facilitate the development of new tuberculosis vaccine.
Animals ; Mice ; Rabbits ; Mycobacterium tuberculosis/genetics* ; Tuberculosis ; Antigens, Bacterial ; Cytokines ; Immunity, Cellular