Fig. 3

Increased apoptosis rates of quiescent SLE-derived mononuclear cells correlate with defective DNA repair efficiencies. a The induction of apoptosis after treatment of PBMCs from quiescent systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and their matched healthy controls (HC) with melphalan. Correlation between the melphalan doses required for the induction of apoptosis and the drug-induced monoadducts (b) or double-strand breaks levels (c) in the same QSLE patients or healthy controls. d Correlation between individual efficiencies of nucleotide excision repair versus double-strand breaks repair (expressed as AUC) in all SLE patients (six with quiescent disease and six with proliferative nephritis) and 12 healthy controls. The experiments shown were based on a minimum of three independent repeats and the data reported are the mean ± SD of all the subjects analyzed