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New research · Rheumatology
Molecular biology reports · 17h
StudyMolecular biology reports · 2026

Differential methylation of immune-related genes and its clinical significance in systemic lupus erythematosus: insights from TET2, FOXP3, and IFI44L genes.

Esmat Rigi Yousefabadi, Sahar Mostafapour, Delnya Gholami … Hamid Reza Khorram Khorshid
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RheumatologyStudy

IFI44L gene hypomethylation distinguishes systemic lupus erythematosus from healthy controls

Differential methylation of immune-related genes and its clinical significance in systemic lupus erythematosus: insights from TET2, FOXP3, and IFI44L genes.

Esmat Rigi Yousefabadi et al. · Molecular biology reports · 2026
Background

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease with challenging early diagnosis and effective monitoring due to the limited performance of current biomarkers.

Methods

A total of 102 patients with SLE and 105 healthy controls were enrolled in this study.

n = 102 patients
Results

Good accuracy separating lupus patients from healthy people (higher AUC = better)

86.3%
Sensitivity
74.3%
Specificity
More results

However, methylation levels of FOXP3 and TET2 did not show significant differences between the two groups.

Besides, higher FOXP3 methylation was observed in early-onset SLE patients and those with renal involvement, characterized by positive correlations with CRP and anti-dsDNA antibodies, and negative correlations with complement C3 and C4 levels.

More results

TET2 methylation was shown to be elevated in early-onset patients and positively correlated with ESR and anti-dsDNA levels (P < 0.05).

“
Conclusion · 1 of 2

Promoter methylation of IFI44L, FOXP3, and TET2 plays critical roles in SLE pathogenesis.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

IFI44L hypomethylation may serve as a diagnostic biomarker, while methylation of FOXP3 and TET2 reflects disease activity, early-onset disease, and renal involvement.

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