Fig. 1

Numbers of autophagosomes of patients with lupus nephritis (LN) and healthy controls. Original magnification 25,000×. a Numbers of autophagosomes in podocytes, mesangial cells, endothelial cells, and epithelial cells of total patients with LN (n = 25) and healthy controls (n = 7); autophagosomes were counted under transmission electron microscope (TEM) in an area of copper mesh (approximately 7065 square millimeters). *P <0.05 versus control podocytes (n = 25); ^#P <0.05 versus control mesangial cells (n = 25); ^%P <0.05 versus control endothelial cells (n = 25); ^&P <0.05 versus control epithelial cells (n = 25); **P <0.01 versus LN podocytes (n = 25). b Numbers of autophagosomes in podocytes, mesangial cells, endothelial cells, and epithelial cells of different classifications of patients with LN and healthy controls (n = 7). *P <0.05 versus control podocytes (n = 25). c Numbers of podocytes of patients with LN and healthy controls. *P <0.05 versus class III LN; ^#P <0.05 versus class IV LN. d Representative images of autophagosome in renal resident cells in different classifications of LN are shown. The red frames label autophagosomes (scale bar 500 nm, original magnification 25,000×). All statistical analyses were performed by using SPSS version 21.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) and GraphPad Prism 6 (GraphPad Software, Inc., La Jolla, CA, USA) for macOS. A P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Data were expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD) and median with range or frequency, as appropriate. Intergroup comparisons were made by using Pearson chi-squared test for categorical variables and Student’s t test, Mann–Whitney U test, or Wilcoxon test for continuous variables, as appropriate. Abbreviation: HC healthy control