BAFF, APRIL Y BAFFR: DIFFERENTIAL BIOMARKERS BETWEEN IGA VASCULITIS AND IGA NEPHROPATHY?

Abstract

Background: IgA vasculitis (IgAV) and IgA nephropathy (IgAN) are inflammatory conditions [1, 2], that share pathogenic mechanisms [1], in which B-lymphocytes are described as key cells implicated in these processes. BAFF, APRIL, and BAFF-R are cytokines implicated in the development of B-lymphocytes [3, 4] and in autoimmune processes [5, 6]. In this regard, an influence of BAFF, APRIL, and BAFFR polymorphisms was observed on several immune-mediated conditions, with BAFF GCTGT>A being a shared insertion-deletion variant for inflammatory conditions [7, 8]. Objectives: To determine whether BAFF, APRIL, and BAFFR could be used as differential biomarkers between IgAV and IgAN. Methods: BAFF rs374039502 (which colocalizes with BAFF GCTGT>A), two tag variants within APRIL (rs11552708 and rs6608), and two tag variants within BAFFR (rs7290134 and rs77874543) were genotyped in 394 Caucasian IgAV patients, 95 patients with IgAN, and 832 matched healthy controls.