Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is common childhood rheumatic disease harming children health. However, there is still lack of effective biomarkers for diagnosis JIA at early onset. We aim to construct a classification model to predict JIA disease. The peripheral blood gene expression profile data of JIA were downloaded from GEO database. We compared and analyzed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between different JIA samples through Pearson's correlation coefficient method and unsupervised clustering analysis. Diagnostic model were constructed based on the deviation pathway through bioinformatics method. Eighteen specific correlated DEGs were obtained, but the correlations altered in different disease states. Although most JIA and control samples were clustered by unsupervised clustering analysis, respectively, a few JIA samples could not be clustered well. Four co-expression networks were next constructed with gene connections dynamically altered under variable conditions. Eight signaling pathways were significantly enriched including B/T cell receptor, ErbB and MAPK signaling pathways. The deviation scores of pathways were calculated. Applying these eight signaling pathways as feature to construct a classification model could predict JIA disease with high accuracies. Our data provide some light into pathogenic mechanism of JIA, the specific gene sets and the related signaling pathways may be potential biomarkers for diagnosis or therapeutic targets of JIA.

Abstract. The present study aimed to investigate changes of T-regulatory (Treg) and T-helper (Th)17 cells as well as cytokines in peripheral blood of children with acute bronchitis, and to explore the roles of these cells in the pathogenesis of acute bronchitis. A total of 126 children who had presented at Renji Hospital (Shanghai, China) with acute bronchitis were selected as the observation group and 30 healthy children were selected as the control group. Th17/Tregs in the peripheral blood of the children of the observation group and the control group was detected by flow cytometry. The levels of cytokines interleukin (IL)-17, IL-22, IL-10 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β in peripheral blood serum were detected by ELISA. Compared with those in the control group, Treg cells, the Treg/Th17 ratio as well as serum IL-10 and TGF-β levels were significantly decreased in the observation group (P<0.05), while Th17 cells as well as serum levels of IL-17 and IL-22 were significantly increased (P<0.05). In conclusion, Treg/Th17 and the expression of associated cytokines lost their balance in children with acute bronchitis, suggesting that Treg and Th17 cells as well as their cytokines may be involved in the pathogenesis of acute bronchitis. It may be of certain guiding significance to detect Treg/Th17 and levels of serum cytokines in peripheral blood for clinical treatment.

Background: The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and American College of Rheumatology (ACR) recently developed a systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) classification criteria (EULAR/ACR-2019) with high sensitivity and specificity. The aim of this study was to validate and compare the performance of the newly developed criteria to that of the ACR-1997 and the 2012 Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC-2012) criteria in juvenile-onset SLE (jSLE) and adult-onset SLE (aSLE) patients.Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of SLE patients (221 children and adult) and controls (214 children and adult) with defined rheumatic diseases to establish the ACR-1997, SLICC-2012 and EULAR/ACR-2019 criteria. The performance of the three criteria was statistically analyzed.Results: For jSLE, sensitivities of ACR-1997, SLICC-2012 and EULAR/ACR-2019 criteria were 63.3%, 94.6% and 98.2% (P < 0.001), with specificities 99.5%, 98.6% and 93.5% (P < 0.001), respectively. For aSLE, sensitivities of ACR-1997, SLICC-2012 and EULAR/ACR-2019 criteria were 72.9%, 96.8% and 99.1% (P < 0.001), with specificities 97.2%, 92.5% and 90.2% (P = 0.013), respectively. In ANA positive juvenile patients, a EULAR/ACR score ≥13 instead of a score ≥10 resulted in higher specificity (93.1% vs. 75.9%), despite slightly lower sensitivity (92.2% vs. 99.5%). In both jSLE and aSLE patients, the SLICC-2012 and EULAR/ACR-2019 criteria had increased sensitivity for major organ involvement than ACR-1997.Conclusion: The EULAR/ACR-2019 criteria showed similar sensitivity to jSLE and aSLE patients and was more sensitive than ACR-1997 and SLICC-2012 criteria, allowing earlier recognition of patients with single or major organ involvement. The adoption of a EULAR/ACR total score ≥13 in this study, instead of the initially proposed ≥10 score, was more appropriate to classify jSLE.