Clinical diagnoses associated with a positive antinuclear antibody test in patients with and without autoimmune disease.

Background: Antinuclear antibodies (ANA) are antibodies present in several autoimmune disorders. However, a large proportion of the general population (20%) also have a positive test; very few of these individuals will develop an autoimmune disease, and the clinical impact of a positive ANA in them is not known. Thus, we test the hypothesis that ANA + test reflects a state of immune dysregulation that alters risk for some clinical disorders in individuals without an autoimmune disease.

and the risk of adverse renal outcomes in patients of African ancestry with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disproportionately affects individuals of African ancestry (AA) compared to European ancestry (EA). In the general population, high risk (HR) variants in the apolipoprotein L1 ( gene increase the risk of renal and hypertensive disorders in individuals of AA. Since SLE is characterized by an interferon signature and expression is driven by interferon, we examined the hypothesis that HR genotypes predominantly drive higher rates of renal and hypertensive-related comorbidities observed in SLE patients of AA versus those of EA.

Ancestry, and leucopenia in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objective: SLE is more prevalent in populations of African (AA) than European ancestry (EA) and leucopenia is common. A homozygous variant in (rs2814778-CC) is associated with lower white cell counts; the variant is common in AA but not EA populations. We hypothesised that in SLE: (1) leucopenia is more frequent in patients of AA than EA, and (2) the CC genotype accounts for the higher frequency of leucopenia in AA patients.