interleukin 21 expression in patients with lupus

Background and aim: systemic lupus erythematosus (sle) is a systemic autoimmune disease that is associated with vascular inflammation of connective tissue and can affect most vital organs, including joints, skin, kidneys, and heart. il-21 is a cytokine that causes the t-cell phenotype to increase with the help of b cell and increase the secretion of inflammatory cytokines. the effects of il-21 on the differentiation of b cells in plasma cells and t cells have made il-21 a significant candidate for sle cases. the aim of this study was to investigate the relative expression of il-21 gene and its relationship with lupus. methods: in this case study, 39 patients with lupus as well as 21 healthy individuals participated as a control group. a complete peripheral blood sample was prepared and white blood cells were extracted after centrifugation, rna is then extracted from peripheral circulatory leukocytes, and their cdnas were synthesized using kits. finally, to measure the expression of the il-21 gene, samples were performed using a light cycler, real time pcr, and the data were analyzed using spss software. results: the study found that il-21 gene expression was 1.97 times higher in the patient group than in the control group ,this increase in expression was not significant (p = 0.317) . conclusion: many studies to date have shown that serum il-21 concentrations increase in sle patients. there is also a link between alelic changes (polymorphism) in the coding gene for cytokines and lupus. also in humans, an increase in il-21 levels has been observed in the serum of people with sle , these findings were consistent with our study because in our study, sick people had higher il-21 levels than healthy people. for example, a study of genetically engineered mice found that mice that did not have an il-21 receptor, the rate of lupus decreases. these studies indicate the role of il-21 in sle pathogenesis. in our study, although statistically significant increase in il-21 expression was not significant, it was consistent with previous studies.