Association between IgG4 Autoantibody and Complement Abnormalities in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Figure 4

Levels of IgG subclass, C1q, and C3 deposition in lupus nephritis. (a) IgG subclass, C1q, and C3 deposition in LN renal tissue were detected by direct immunofluorescence staining as described in Section 2. (b) The correlations between the ratio of deposition score for IgG4/(IgG1 + IgG2 + IgG3 + IgG4) and the score for C1q and C3 deposition were analyzed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. The value was considered statistically significant if it was less than 0.05 (, including 46 newly diagnosed LN patients and 65 LN patients treated with prednisone plus cyclophosphamide or azathioprine or hydroxychloroquine or mycophenolate mofetil).

(a)

(b)