Blood immunophenotyping identifies distinct kidney histopathology and outcomes in patients with lupus nephritis.

Abstract

Lupus nephritis (LN) is a frequent manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus, and fewer than half of patients achieve complete renal response with standard immunosuppressants. Identifying non-invasive, blood-based immune alterations associated with renal injury could aid therapeutic decisions. Here, we used mass cytometry immunophenotyping of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in 145 patients with biopsy-proven LN and 40 healthy controls to evaluate the heterogeneity of immune activation and identify correlates of renal parameters. Unbiased analysis identified three immunologically distinct groups of patients that were associated with different patterns of histopathology, renal cell infiltrates, urine proteomic profiles, and treatment response at one year. Patients with enriched circulating granzyme B+ T cells showed more active disease and increased numbers of activated CD8 T cells in the kidney, yet they had the highest likelihood of treatment response. A second group characterized by a high type I interferon signature had a lower likelihood of response to therapy, while a third group appeared immunologically inactive but with chronic renal injuries. The major immunologic axes of variation could be distilled down to five simple cytometric parameters that recapitulate several clinical associations, highlighting the potential for blood immunoprofiling to translate to clinically useful non-invasive metrics to assess immune-mediated disease in LN.