Demographic and clinical data analysis
The demographic characteristics of involved patients and healthy
controls (HC) were described in Table I. A total of 40 eligible patients
with MPO-AAV were enrolled in patient group, among whom 39 were
diagnosed as MPA and 1 as GPA. The male patients (60.00%) were more
than the females (40.00%). Laboratory tests for p-ANCA and MPO-ANCA in
patient group were both positive. Their disease duration was 6.75 ± 6.72
months and their mean BVAS was 21.03±5.97. The HC group also consisted
of 40 volunteers with negative test results for both p-ANCA and
MPO-ANCA. There was no difference between the 2 group in terms of age
(67.65 ± 12.52 vs. 65.30 ± 10.13 years old) and gender ratio
(60.00% vs. 47.51% were male), indicating that
the
2 groups were comparable demographically.
The
difference of PAD4 expression between patient and HC group
The expression of PAD4 in neutrophils detected by FCM was described by
the percentage of neutrophils expressed PAD4+ in all
neutrophils and the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of
PAD4+neutrophils.
Statistical analysis showed that the percentage of
PAD4+ neutrophils in the patient group was
significantly higher than that in HC group (70.48 ± 10.47% vs .
25.91 ± 6.33%, p <0.001; Fig.1A). Also,
the MFI of PAD4+neutrophils was increased significantly in the patient group compared
with the HC group (32.89 ± 4.43 vs. 14.41 ± 4.24,p <0.001; Fig.1B).