Introduction: Adhesion molecules are essential for cellular interactions and are important in the activation and adhesion of cells. Studies have shown that elevated levels of solubile ICAM and VCAM are related to disease activity in patients with various acute and chronic inflammatory diseases. Our aim was to investigate the correlation between the levels of sICAM-1 anti sVCAM-1 and the degree of disease activity and severity of lupus nephritis.
Material and methods: Using the ELISA procedure, we determined the sera levels of sVCAM-1 and sICAM-1 in 80 patients with SLE and in group of 27 healthy volunteers.
Results: Patients with SLE had significantly higher sera levels of adhesion molecules comparing to the controls (p<0.001). There was a high positive correlation between the sera levels of sVCAM-1 and concentration of anti-ds DNA antibodies in patients with SLE (p<0.001), and there was also a negative correlation between the sera levels of sVCAM-1 and concentration of C3 and C4 component of complement (r=-0.64, r=-0.58). In the group of patients with lupus nephritis, significantly higher sera concentrations of sVCAM-1 were detected compared patients without nephritis. Patients with class III and IV kidney changes had significantly higher levels of sVCAM-1 compared to the patients with class II kidney changes. In the group of patients with activity index of kidney changes (AI) over 4 sVCAM-1 the sera levels were significantly higher compared to the group with AI <4.
Conclusion: The sera level of sVCAM-1 is a reliable parameter to evaluate the autoreactivity degree in SLE. In the same time, sVCAM-1 sera level can be used as a reliable marker to evaluate the renal lesion extensivity in SLE.