الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Systemic lupus erythematosus is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease with multiple clinical manifestations including auto-antibodies, dermatological rashes and ulcers, inflammatory markers, hematological deficiencies, arthritis, renal dysfunction, and neurological disorders .The practical part of the study was carried out in Medical Microbiology and Immunology department. Patients were selected from those attending the Rheumatology, Rehabilitation and Physical medicine department Benha University. It was conducted on 50 persons classified into two groups as follow: group I: Were 30 SLE patients, they were 4 (13.3%) males and 26 (86.7%) females. Their ages ranged between 16-46 years with mean of 28. 8±5.04 years, with disease duration ranged between 1-13 years. Tewenty four lupus patients were with active disease while six patients were with inactive disease. Twelve lupus patients were with lupus nephritis and ehighteen without lupus nephritis.group II: Including 20 age and sex matched apparently healthy volunteers serve as a control group, they were 17(85.0%) females &3 (15.0%) males. Their ages raned between 18-40 years with mean of 27.9±3.9 years. The aim of this work was to evaluate the level of CD26 mRNA expression in the leucocytes of systemic lupus erythematosus patients by quantitative RT-PCR and correlate this level with the disease activity and lupus nephritis.All patients were subjected to: full history taking, thorough clinical examination, laboratory assessment: CBC, ESR, ANA, Anti- ds DNS, C3, C4, 24 h protein (gm/24 hrs), serum creatinine, serum urea, assessment of disease activity SLEDAI score and CD26 mRNA expression using RT-PCR.