Fig. 3

Characteristics of LINC00487. a, b Correlation between LINC00487 and interferon signature genes (IFI44L, IFIT3, IFI44) of pSS (a) and HCs (b) according to the subset. Each row corresponds to an interferon signature gene and columns to a B cell subset. Significant p value was shown in each plot. *p < 0.05; Spearman’s correlation test. c Scatter plot of disease activity scores and normalized expression levels of LINC00487 in Bm1, naive, pre-GC and memory subset of patients with pSS. d–f qPCR analysis of LINC00487 in primary human CD19⁺ B cells. Comparison of the relative expression of LINC00487 (/GDH) between patients with pSS and HCs (d) (*p < 0.05; the Mann-Whitney test), and correlation plot of relative expression of the LINC00487 (/GDH) and interferon-induced protein 44-like gene (/GDH) in patients with pSS (e) and HCs (f). g, h qPCR analysis of B cell lines after treatment with IFNα. B cell lines were treated for 48 h. Results are represented as the mean ± standard deviation. ESSDAI, EULAR Sjögren’s Syndrome Disease Activity Index; GC-B, germinal centre B cell; GDH, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase; HC, healthy control; IFI44, interferon-induced protein 44; IFI44L, interferon-induced protein 44 like; IFIT3, interferon-induced protein with tetratricopeptide repeats 3; pSS, primary Sjögren’s syndrome