Proteins Found in Urine Might Provide a Better Understanding of Juvenile Dermatomyositis

Description

Juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) is a rare autoimmune disease. It is a chronic condition in most kids, who often experience weakness, skin rash, and inflammation with relatively unpredictable disease course and treatment response. In this study, the researchers used mass spectrometry to analyze the protein contents of urine from kids with JDM, and compared them with samples from healthy controls. They found several differentially expressed proteins, including cathepsin D and galectin-3 binding protein. The levels of these two proteins were higher in the urine from kids with JDM. They also identified some proteins that correlate with clinical measures of disease activity and damage. For example, the levels of cathepsin D in urine positively correlated with disease damage and negatively correlated with results from a muscle disease activity assessment scale.

What is exciting about this article?

Results from this study suggest that urine analysis may help provide a better understanding of the changes associated with JDM at the protein level. The next step would be to validate the study’s results in larger cohorts. Further, this article shows that urine analysis can be a non-invasive way to study rare diseases such as JDM.

Grant support

AR041215