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Objectives: CD25 (IL-2Rα) is one of IL-2 receptor's polypeptide subunits, and its soluble form is increased in patients with various inflammatory or autoimmune diseases. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical correlation of serum soluble CD25 (sCD25) with interstitial lung disease (ILD) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients., Methods: 294 RA patients, including 72 in the discovery cohort (15 patients with ILD, 57 patients without ILD), 222 in the validation cohort (41 patients with ILD and 181 patients without ILD), and 58 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scan provided evidence and patterns of RA-ILD. Serum sCD25 concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Clinical and laboratory data were recorded and the association with sCD25 was also analysed., Results: In the discovery cohort, 16 RA-related molecules including cytokines, chemokines and functional soluble cell surface proteins were investigated. The results showed that sCD25 was significantly higher in RA-ILD than in RA-no-ILD group (p=0.004). ROC analysis also showed RA-ILD was discriminated with RA-no-ILD by sCD25 (AUC=0.695, 95% CI=0.541-0.849). Logistics regression demonstrated that sCD25 was one of the risk factors of RA-ILD. This result was further confirmed in validation cohort (p<0.001). According to the cut-off value in the discovery cohort, the sensitivity and specificity of sCD25 in RA-ILD were 51.2%, 77.3%, respectively. Compared with RA-no-ILD, serum level of sCD25 was also higher in different HRCT patterns including UIP, NSIP and RA-ILA. The ROC curves revealed sCD25 as diagnostic marker in UIP, NSIP and RA-ILA (with AUCs of 0.730, 0.761, and 0. 694, respectively, p<0.05). The result indicated that sCD25 was a biomarker for RA-ILD subtypes. Although sCD25 was not correlated with HRCT scores, it was significantly higher in consolidation pattern by HRCT., Conclusions: sCD25 was significantly elevated in RA-ILD (including UIP, NSIP and RA-ILA) compared to RA-no-ILD and HCs, which supports their value as a potential biomarker in RA-ILD screening and assessment.

Objectives: Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) is one of the most serious complications of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), lacking efficient diagnostic biomarkers. Previous studies have shown that anti-ubiquitin carboxyl hydrolase L1(UCH-L1) autoantibody is a promising cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker for NPSLE diagnosis. The purpose of this study is to explore the serum autoantibodies against different UCH-L1 epitopes and investigate the potential diagnostic value of serum autoantibodies against different UCH-L1 epitopes in NPSLE., Methods: The epitopes of UCH-L1 protein were predicted in DNAStar software. The serum levels of different UCH-L1 epitope autoantibodies in 40 NPSLE patients, 32 SLE patients without neuropsychiatric symptoms and 21 healthy controls were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Data were analysed using Pearson correlation analysis, ROC curve analysis, nonparametric Mann-Whitney test, t-test and χ2 test., Results: We screened three candidate epitopes of UCH-L1 protein. The autoantibody against amino acid 58 to 69 of UCH-L1 (UCH58-69) showed highest diagnostic power in distinguishing NPSLE patients from SLE patients without neuro-psychiatric symptoms (p=0.0038). The ROC analysis showed that the specificity and sensitivity of anti-UCH58-69 were 92.3% and 37.5%, respectively. In addition, increased serum anti-UCH58-69 levels were associated with increased SLEDAI, CSF microprotein, CSF leukocyte count, ESR, AnuA, anti-dsDNA, IgG and IgM but with decrease of C3 in SLE patients., Conclusions: The serum levels of anti-UCH58-69 significantly increased in NPSLE patients compared with SLE patients without neuropsychiatric symptoms and were correlated with disease severity. Anti-UCH58-69 autoantibody may become a novel serum biomarker for NPSLE non-invasive diagnosis, which might be applicable for NPSLE early screening and diagnosis.