Blockade of autophagic activity by 3-MA or siRNA-mediated silencing of Atg5 resulted in decreases in LC3-II/LC3-I ratios, podocyte apoptosis and damage in the mice LN group.
As elevated ATG5 expression was observed in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the study was conducted to analyze the genome-wide genetic regulatory mechanisms associated with ATG5 expression in a Chinese population with lupus nephritis (LN).Methods.
Although these rare variants were observed to be located in the flanking regions of exons instead of missense mutations, patients carrying them tended to have severe clinical phenotype, and in silicon analysis suggested their regulatory effects.Increased frequencies of rare variants of ATG5 were identified in patients with LN and SLE compared with healthy controls, highlighting a likely important role of rare ATG5 variants in Chinese SLE patients.