Tumor Necrosis Factor-Like Weak Inducer of Apoptosis Accelerates the Progression of Renal Fibrosis in Lupus Nephritis by Activating SMAD and p38 MAPK in TGF-β1 Signaling Pathway

Table 1

Proteinuria in MRL/MPJ and MRL/lpr mice (mg/24 h).

	Control	Control shRNA	TWEAK-shRNA	MRL/MPJ
Urine protein (13 weeks)	5.12 ± 0.73	5.34 ± 0.69	5.51 ± 1.03	0.97 ± 0.19
Urine protein (17 weeks)	7.68 ± 1.51	7.61 ± 1.48^#	3.16 ± 0.37^#△	1.25 ± 0.19

Control: MRL/lpr mice treated with PBS; Control shRNA: MRL/lpr mice treated with LV-Control shRNA; TWEAK-shRNA: MRL/lpr mice treated with LV-TWEAK-shRNA; MRL/MPJ: MRL/MPJ mice as normal control. Data are mean ± standard deviation. versus MRL/MPJ at the same time point, versus control MRL/lpr mice at the same time point, and versus control MRL/lpr mice at 13 weeks of age.