Alterations of oxygen consumption and extracellular acidification rates by glutamine in PBMCs of SLE patients

We evaluated plasma glutamine levels and basal mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate (mOCR ) and basal extracellular acidification rate (ECAR ) of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) patients and healthy controls (HCs). Lower plasma glutamine levels correlated with higher SLE disease activity indexes (p=0.025). Incubated in DMEM containing 100mg/dL glucose, SLE-PBMCs displayed lower mOCR (p=0.018) but similar ECAR (p=0.467) to those of HC-PBMCs, and their mOCR got elevated (p