2.1 Patients and healthy controls
A total of 31 pSS patients were enrolled from the Rheumatology and
Immunology Department,the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow
University in the study. All patients were diagnosed according to the
classification standard of primary Sjogren’s syndrome of American
College of Rheumatology(ACR)/European League Against Rheumatism(EULAR)
in 2016[13],and those who with malignant tumor,
chronic hepatitis C(HCV), human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV),
sarcoidosis, amyloidosis, graft versus host disease (GVHD), IgG4-related
diseases and other rheumatic diseases were excluded.We also recruited 29
individuals (age and gender matched) without autoimmune diseases,cancer
and infectious diseases from the physical examination center as healthy
controls (HCs).This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the
First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University in 2020 (Ethical No.
2020105).And all participants signed the informed consent.