Correlation of plasma and urine Wnt5A with the disease activity and cutaneous lesion severity in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Reliable noninvasive biomarkers are needed to accurately assess disease activity and prognosis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical relevance of Wnt5A with disease activity and severity with cutaneous involvement in particular in SLE patients; its concentrations in plasma and urine were examined and analyzed. In the cross-sectional study, the clinical relevance of Wnt5A protein was evaluated in both plasma and urine of SLE patients and healthy cohorts using commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Significantly, more abundances of Wnt5A protein were determined in both of plasmas and urines of SLE patients compared to healthy cohorts (p < 0.0001), which were even higher in active disease (AD) SLE patients relative to low disease activity (LDA) SLE patients (p < 0.0001). Meanwhile, the ROC curve analysis demonstrated that the plasma and urine Wnt5A were potential candidate biomarkers for identifying the disease activity and severity in SLE patients. The discriminant function analysis further revealed that the plasma and urine Wnt5A were separated and distinct for AD SLE patients and healthy controls. In consistence, the disease severity was correlated with the plasma and urine Wnt5A as ascertained by CLASI activity score and the prevalence of serositis in SLE patients. These results suggest that Wnt5A, as a summary measure for different inflammatory processes, could be a potential biomarker for accessing the disease activity, and a noninvasive biomarker for evaluating the disease severity in terms of cutaneous involvement in SLE patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12026-021-09253-w.