After treatment of prednisone for 3 weeks, serum concentrations of PGRN in the patients were correlated with IL-6 (r = 0.836, P < 0.01), PR3 (r = 0.396, P = 0.031), TNFR (r = 0.533, p = 0.02), TNF-α (r = 0.378, P = 0.039) and anti-dsDNA antibody (r = 0.712, P < 0.01) in post-treatment SLE patients (Figure 3). Here, TNF is linked to systemic lupus erythematosus.