Objective. To evaluate the plasma levels of lnc-DC in primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) patients and investigate the potential associations between lnc-DC and disease activity. Methods. In this study, we recruited 358 enrollments, including 127 pSS patients without immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), 22 pSS patients with ITP, 50 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, and 50 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 109 healthy individuals, from Xuzhou Central Hospital. The expression of anti-SSA and anti-SSB was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Spearman rank correlation test was used to analyze the relationship between lnc-DC and pSS activity. pSS activity was measured by anti-SSA, anti-SSB antibody, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and β₂-microglobulin levels. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine the diagnostic performance of plasma lnc-DC for pSS. Results. Compared with healthy controls, SLE and RA patients, the lnc-DC expression levels were significantly elevated in pSS patients (), especially in pSS patients with ITP (). As expected, we also found that the lnc-DC expression positively correlated with anti-SSA (, ), anti-SSB (, ), ESR level (, ), and β₂-microglobulin level (, ) in pSS patients. ROC curves showed that plasma lnc-DC in pSS patients had an AUC 0.80 with a sensitivity of 0.75 and specificity of 0.85 at the optimum cutoff 1.06 in discriminating SLE and RA patients. In addition, the combination of lnc-DC and anti-SSA/SSB (AUC: 0.84, sensitivity: 0.79, specificity: 0.90) improved significantly the diagnostic ability of pSS patients from SLE and RA patients. In the efficacy monitoring study, levels of plasma lnc-DC were dramatically decreased after treatment (). Conclusion. These findings highlight that plasma lnc-DC as a novel biomarker for the diagnosis of pSS and can be used to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of pSS underwent interventional therapy.

中文翻译：

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鉴定血浆中长链非编码 RNA lnc-DC 作为原发性干燥综合征的新生物标志物

客观。评估原发性干燥综合征 (pSS) 患者的血浆 lnc-DC 水平，并研究 lnc-DC 与疾病活动之间的潜在关联。方法。在这项研究中，我们从来自徐州市中心医院。酶联免疫吸附试验（ELISA）检测抗SSA和抗SSB的表达。采用Spearman秩相关检验分析lnc-DC与pSS活性的关系。通过抗 SSA、抗 SSB 抗体、红细胞沉降率 (ESR) 和β _{2测量 pSS 活性}-微球蛋白水平。受试者工作特征 (ROC) 曲线用于确定血浆 lnc-DC 对 pSS 的诊断性能。结果。与健康对照组、SLE 和 RA 患者相比，pSS 患者的 lnc-DC 表达水平显着升高。），尤其是在患有 ITP 的 pSS 患者中（）。正如预期的那样，我们还发现 lnc-DC 表达与抗 SSA 呈正相关（, ),抗 SSB (, ), ESR 水平 (, )和β ₂ - 微球蛋白水平 (, )在 pSS 患者中。ROC 曲线显示 pSS 患者的血浆 lnc-DC 在区分 SLE 和 RA 患者时的 AUC 为 0.80，灵敏度为 0.75，特异性为 0.85，最佳截止值为 1.06。此外，lnc-DC 和抗 SSA/SSB 的组合（AUC：0.84，敏感性：0.79，特异性：0.90）显着提高了对 SLE 和 RA 患者 pSS 患者的诊断能力。在疗效监测研究中，治疗后血浆 lnc-DC 水平显着下降（）。 结论。这些发现强调了血浆 lnc-DC 作为诊断 pSS 的新型生物标志物，可用于评估 pSS 接受介入治疗的治疗效果。