{"doi":"10.1186/s13075-021-02511-0","title":"Proteome study of cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) and dermatomyositis skin lesions reveals IL-16 is differentially upregulated in CLE","abstract":"BACKGROUND: The objective of the study was to explore the disease pathways activated in the inflammatory foci of skin lesions in cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) and dermatomyositis (DM). METHODS: Skin biopsies acquired from active CLE and DM lesions, patient (PC), and also healthy controls (HC) were investigated. Biopsy sections were examined by a pathologist, inflammatory foci were laser micro-dissected and captured, and proteins within captured tissue were detected in an unbiased manner by mass spectrometry. Protein pathway analysis was performed by the string-db.org platform. Findings of interest were confirmed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). RESULTS: Proteome investigation identified abundant expression of interferon-regulated proteins (IRP) as a common feature of CLE and DM. Interleukin (IL)-16 was the only abundant cytokine differentially expressed in CLE compared to DM. Caspase-3, an enzyme that cleaves IL-16 into its active form, was detected in low levels. Significantly higher proportion of IL-16- and caspase-3-positive cells was identified in CLE lesions in comparison with DM, PC, and HC. Proteomic results indicate more abundant complement deposition in CLE skin lesions. CONCLUSIONS: Using unbiased mass spectrometry investigation of CLE and DM inflammatory infiltrates, we confirmed that high IRP expression is a common feature of both CLE and DM, while IL-16 is the only differentially expressed cytokine in CLE. IHC confirmed high expression of IL-16 and caspase-3 in CLE. Our novel molecular findings indicate that IL-16 detection could be useful in differential diagnostics between the two conditions that can display similar histopathological appearance. IL-16 could be of interest as a future therapeutic target for CLE.","journal":"Arthritis Research & Therapy","year":2021,"id":177304,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":20,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8818,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":399135,"name":"Alexander Meves","orcid":"0000-0001-7462-8288","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720991,"name":"Julia S. Lehman","orcid":"0000-0002-7389-3853","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":721534,"name":"Karin Popovic-Silwerfeldt","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":721535,"name":"Aliisa Häyry","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":721536,"name":"Therese Söderlund-Matell","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298643,"name":"M. Cristine Charlesworth","orcid":"0000-0001-7481-817X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":298642,"name":"Benjamin J. Madden","orcid":"0000-0001-9167-8535","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264509,"name":"Ingrid E. Lundberg","orcid":"0000-0002-6068-9212","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720992,"name":"Marie Wahren‐Herlenius","orcid":"0000-0002-0915-7245","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":392721,"name":"Elisabet Svenungsson","orcid":"0000-0003-3396-3244","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":720993,"name":"Vilija Oke","orcid":"0000-0002-1834-2688","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287624,"name":"Timothy B. Niewold","orcid":"0000-0003-3532-6660","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":25,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:28.018172Z","pmid":"33931094","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}