Figure 1

LDGs isolated from SLE patients have greater levels of copy number alterations relative to control neutrophils and autologous neutrophils. (A) Genomic DNA from nine healthy female donors and thirteen SLE patients was analyzed by cytogenetic microarray analysis. Values are mean ± SEM. *Distribution differs significantly from autologous normal-density SLE neutrophils, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, one-tailed, P <0.01. (B) The incidence of genomic duplications and deletions was similar in the neutrophil samples isolated from the healthy controls and SLE patients, whereas the autologous LDGs had a significant increases in the number of deletions (a) Wilcoxon signed-rank test, one-tailed, P <0.01) and duplications (b) Wilcoxon signed-rank test, one-tailed, P <0.01). Values are mean ± SEM. (C) Copy number variations for each healthy control (open blue diamonds, n = 9), and autologous pairs of SLE neutrophils (open red squares) and LDGs (filled red squares) are indicated. LDG samples with 18 or more copy number variations were considered ∆CNV_hi. Autologous sample pairs for each SLE patient are indicated by a solid black line for ∆CNV_hi, and a dashed gray line for the ∆CNV_neg. CNV, copy number variation; LDG, low-density granulocyte; SEM, standard error of the mean; SLE, systemic lupus erythematosus.