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

Abstract We evaluated plasma glutamine levels and basal mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate (mOCR B ) and basal extracellular acidification rate (ECAR B ) 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 100 mg/dL glucose, SLE-PBMCs displayed lower mOCR B ( p  = 0.018) but similar ECAR B ( p  = 0.467) to those of HC-PBMCs, and their mOCR B got elevated ( p B ( p  = 0.239) by supplementation with 2 or 4 mM glutamine. We conclude that impaired mitochondrial respiration of SLE-PBMCs could be improved by glutamine under euglycemic condition.