Overexpression of O-linked N-Acetylglucosamine Transferase (OGT) and GlcNAc Proteins in Female Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients

Abstract

The crucial functions of the CD4+ T cells become hindered when CD4+ T cells are hypomethylated. CD4+ T cells stimulate the autoimmune response and are important for helping with the production of antibodies. OGT enables the addition of O-GlcNAc to threonine and serine residues of proteins. OGT is an X-linked gene and mRNA OGT was found overexpressed in T cells from SLE females and experimentally demethylated T cells in the Richardson lab. This finding makes OGT an important molecule to investigate because the wide range of targets that could be affected by its overexpression, the targets have important impact on cellular signaling, and its overexpression could be related with the female preponderance in SLE.