Dear Editor,
We read the recently published article in the May issue of the Journal of the Chinese Medical Association entitled “Diagnostic significance of circulating miR-485-5p in patients with lupus nephritis and its predictive value evaluation for the clinical outcomes” with much interest.1 The authors found that serum microRNA-485-5P (miR-485-5P) may be a promising diagnostic marker for lupus nephritis and has a potential role in the prediction of risk of end-stage renal diseases in lupus nephritis patients based on a positive correlation between the expression of miR-485-5P and the levels of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), serum creatinine, proteinuria, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disease activity index scores, and inflammatory cytokines.1 We congratulate the success of their publication. SLE is an autoimmune disease, often contributing to one of the major causes of end-stage renal disease.2 However, some of their findings make us confused.
eGFR, conventionally, is used to classify the stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD), and the lower eGFR means the more severe CKD status.3 Additionally, serum level of creatinine was negative correlated with eGFR,4,5 of which both can be used to monitor the renal function of patients. In fact, high serum level of creatinine suggests worse renal function, and high eGFR means that renal function is good. However, as shown by the authors, the expression of miR-485-5P showed a positive correlation with the levels of eGFR and also positively correlated with serum level of creatinine in lupus nephritis patients.1 The aforementioned finding seemed to be conflicted. Could the authors kindly explain it?
Footnotes
Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to the subject matter or materials discussed in this article.
REFERENCES
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