BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR on the pathogenesis of Immunoglobulin‑A vasculitis Prieto‑Peña, Diana Ortego Centeno, Norberto We are indebted to the patients and healthy controls for their essential collaboration to this study. We also thank the National DNA Bank Repository (Salamanca) for supplying part of the control samples. This study was supported by European Union FEDER funds and `Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias´ (grant PI18/00042) from ‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III’ (ISCIII, Health Ministry, Spain). DP-P is a recipient of a Río Hortega programme fellowship from the ISCIII, co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF, `Investing in your future´) (grant number CM20/00006). SR-M is supported by funds of the RETICS Program (RD16/0012/0009) (ISCIII, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)). VP-C is supported by a pre-doctoral grant from IDIVAL (PREVAL 18/01). BA-M is a recipient of a `López Albo´ Post-Residency Programme funded by Servicio Cántabro de Salud. LL-G is supported by funds from IDIVAL (INNVAL20/06). OG is staff personnel of Xunta de Galicia (Servizo Galego de Saude (SERGAS)) through a research-staff stabilization contract (ISCIII/SERGAS) and his work is funded by ISCIII and the European Union FEDER fund (grant numbers RD16/0012/0014 (RIER) and PI17/00409). He is beneficiary of project funds from the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Union in the framework of MSCA-RISE Action of the H2020 Programme, project 734899—Olive-Net. RL-M is a recipient of a Miguel Servet type I programme fellowship from the ISCIII, co-funded by ESF (`Investing in your future´) (grant number CP16/00033). Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https:// doi. org/ 10. 1038/ s41598- 021- 91055-z BAFF, APRIL and BAFF-R are key proteins involved in the development of B-lymphocytes and autoimmunity. Additionally, BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR polymorphisms were associated with immunemediated conditions, being BAFF GCTGT>A a shared insertion-deletion genetic variant for several autoimmune diseases. Accordingly, we assessed whether BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR represent novel genetic risk factors for Immunoglobulin-A vasculitis (IgAV), a predominantly B-lymphocyte inflammatory condition. BAFF rs374039502, which colocalizes with BAFF GCTGT>A, and two tag variants within APRIL (rs11552708 and rs6608) and BAFFR (rs7290134 and rs77874543) were genotyped in 386 Caucasian IgAV patients and 806 matched healthy controls. No genotypes or alleles differences were observed between IgAV patients and controls when BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR variants were analysed independently. Likewise, no statistically significant differences were found in the genotype and allele frequencies of BAFF, APRIL or BAFFR when IgAV patients were stratified according to the age at disease onset or to the presence/absence of gastrointestinal (GI) or renal manifestations. Similar results were disclosed when APRIL and BAFFR haplotypes were compared between IgAV patients and controls and between IgAV patients stratified according to the clinical characteristics mentioned above. Our results suggest that BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR do not contribute to the genetic network underlying IgAV. 2021-06-18T09:00:14Z 2021-06-18T09:00:14Z 2021-06-01 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Prieto-Peña, D., Genre, F., Remuzgo-Martínez, S. et al. BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR on the pathogenesis of Immunoglobulin-A vasculitis. Sci Rep 11, 11510 (2021). [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91055-z] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/69271 10.1038/s41598-021-91055-z eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/734899 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Springer Nature