Fig. 2From: A subset of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus fails to degrade DNA from multiple clinically relevant sourcesSera from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) had decreased ability to degrade multiple forms of chromatin. a-c Sera from 66 patients with SLE were used to determine degradation of neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) (a), primary (Prim-Nec) (b), and secondary (Sec-Nec) necrotic cell chromatin (c) in comparison to controls (Healthy ctrl) (a, n = 77; b, n = 50; c, n = 66). A cutoff below 2 SD below the mean degradation in the control group defined patients with low degrading ability and is indicated by the dotted line. d Principal component analysis for correlation revealed that degradation of secondary necrotic chromatin and NETs co-correlated. a-c Mean of three independent experiments with an average SD of 5 %. Significance of difference in (a-c) was calculated using the Mann-Whitney test; ***p <0.001; *p <0.05. NHS normal human serumBack to article page