To the Editor:
Lupus nephritis (LN) is one of the most serious manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and is an important predictor of poor outcome1. Susceptibility to LN is the end result of complex interactions between polymorphic genetic factors involved in the regulation of immune responses. However, to date, a clear etiology is still obscure. Recently, it was reported that kallikrein genes, especially KLK1 gene, were associated with LN in mice and in Caucasians. However, such an association was not shown in all the investigated populations2,3. This implies that different genetic influences exist in different ethnic groups2–5, and it was decided to further validate the association of KLK1 gene polymorphisms with LN in a Chinese Han population.
A case-control association study was performed on 306 LN patients (age 32.2 ± 11.1 yrs, 84.2% female) and 338 matched healthy controls (age 31.7 ± 9.1 yrs, 55.8% female). …