scholarly journals Subpopulations of regulatory T-lymphocytes in the peripheral blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis

2016 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. N. Kravchenko ◽  
G. A. Zhulai ◽  
A. V. Churov ◽  
E. K. Oleinik ◽  
V. M. Oleinik ◽  
...  

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory rheumatic disease, associated with a dysfunction of the T cell-mediated tolerance and leading to the disability of working population.  The regulatory CD4+ T cells are play important role in the regulation of autoimmunity and can suppress immune responses. With that, there is no consensus on the content of  these lymphocytes  and their role in the pathogenesis of RA. Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the content of peripheral blood regulatory T cells (Treg) according to the expression of membrane markers CD4, CD25, CD127 and intracellular FOXP3 marker, as well as the expression of two functional molecules (CTLA-4 and CCR4) in Treg cells of patients with RA. Methods: Peripheral blood samples of RA patients (mean age 61,1±10,5) and healthy controls (mean age 52,2±14,0) were analyzed. Cell count and the expression level of molecules were assessed by flow cytometry. Results: Peripheral blood samples of 36 RA patients and 20 healthy donors were analyzed. The number of the cells with Treg-associated phenotypes CD4+CD25hi and CD4+CD25hiCD127low/– was higher in RA patients in comparison with healthy donors. Increased levels of RA CD4+ T cells expressing FOXP3 were also observed. This may be due to increasing in the number of CD4+FOXP3+CD25- lymphocytes, whereas the content of RA CD4+FOXP3+CD25+ Treg cells was at the level of the control. The expression of the functional molecule CTLA-4 in Treg cells of patients with RA was not different from the control, while the expression level of the chemokine receptor CCR4, which provides migration of lymphocytes at sites of inflammation and barrier tissues, was significantly increased in RA patients. Conclusion: Increase in the levels of certain Treg-associated lymphocyte populations were detected in peripheral blood of RA patients. During the natural course of RA, alterations in the level of the chemokine receptor CCR4 might indicate the enhanced lymphocyte migration.


Life ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 245
Author(s):  
Daniil Shevyrev ◽  
Valeriy Tereshchenko ◽  
Elena Blinova ◽  
Nadezda Knauer ◽  
Ekaterina Pashkina ◽  
...  

Homeostatic proliferation (HP) is a physiological process that reconstitutes the T cell pool after lymphopenia involving Interleukin-7 and 15 (IL-7 and IL-15), which are the key cytokines regulating the process. However, there is no evidence that these cytokines influence the function of regulatory T cells (Tregs). Since lymphopenia often accompanies autoimmune diseases, we decided to study the functional activity of Tregs stimulated by HP cytokines from patients with rheumatoid arthritis as compared with that of those from healthy donors. Since T cell receptor (TCR) signal strength determines the intensity of HP, we imitated slow HP using IL-7 or IL-15 and fast HP using a combination of IL-7 or IL-15 with anti-CD3 antibodies, cultivating Treg cells with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) at a 1:1 ratio. We used peripheral blood from 14 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 18 healthy volunteers. We also used anti-CD3 and anti-CD3 + IL-2 stimulation as controls. The suppressive activity of Treg cells was evaluated in each case by the inhibition of the proliferation of CD4+ and CD8+ cells. The phenotype and proliferation of purified CD3+CD4+CD25+CD127lo cells were assessed by flow cytometry. The suppressive activity of the total pool of Tregs did not differ between the rheumatoid arthritis and healthy donors; however, it significantly decreased in conditions close to fast HP when the influence of HP cytokines was accompanied by anti-CD3 stimulation. The Treg proliferation caused by HP cytokines was lower in the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients than in the healthy individuals. The revealed decrease in Treg suppressive activity could impact the TCR landscape during lymphopenia and lead to the proliferation of potentially self-reactive T cell clones that are able to receive relatively strong TCR signals. This may be another explanation as to why lymphopenia is associated with the development of autoimmune diseases. The revealed decrease in Treg proliferation under IL-7 and IL-15 exposure can lead to a delay in Treg pool reconstitution in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the case of lymphopenia.



Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 3323-3323
Author(s):  
Yan Huang ◽  
Peifang Jiang ◽  
Jiazheng Li ◽  
Yanxin Chen ◽  
Zhengjun Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma (ATL) is an aggressive mature T-cell neoplasm caused by human T -cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1). Up to 5% of infected individuals develop to ATL. HTLV-1 preferentially infects CD4 + T cells, and stimulates cell proliferation and prevents cell death by apoptosis. The viral oncogene-encoded proteins, Tax and HBZ, play important roles in viral infection and cell immortalization. However, the host factor of developing from carrier to patient is not clear. Results To characterize the heterogeneity of ATL patients, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing (10x Genomics) analysis on single cell suspensions isolated from PBMCs of nine samples, including three ATL patients, three HTLV-1 asymptomatic carriers as well as three healthy donors (HD). We acquired 82977 high-quality cells with a median of 1718 genes detected per cell. Unsupervised clustering using Seurat followed by visualization in t-Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) identified 29 distinct cell clusters (Figure 1A). The single cell profiling of ATL patients were significantly different from that of carriers and healthy donors, while the latter two had little difference (Figure 1B). Based on singleR packages and marker genes of each cluster, 4 major cell populations (T cells, NK cells, B cells and myeloid cells) and other rare cell types were annotated, such as erythrocyte cluster and eosinophils cluster. We observed an enrichment of CD4 + T cell from patients in 4 cluster (Figure 1C), which proportion of cells was higher than that of carriers and healthy donors. According to cell type annotation, cells from cluster 11 were CD4 + CD25 + Foxp3 + Treg cells. Based on the increasing proportion of cluster 11 in healthy people, carriers and patients, without significant statistical differences, we assumed that Foxp3 + Treg cells were involved in the evolution of ATL tumor cells. That was identical with published literatures. To investigate the differences between tumor and normal CD4 + T cell, the gene expression was compared among 7 clusters of CD4 + T cell from three groups. Using a threshold of p value < 0.05 and | fold change| >2. Through integrated analysis, we identified 26 commonly upregulated genes (gene expression level: patients > carriers > HD) and 9 downregulated genes (gene expression level: patients < carriers < HD. To further analyze the biological function of the common DEGs, gene ontology (GO) analysis showed that these genes could be mainly categorized into plasma membrane and protein binding. Subsequently, we validated the mRNA expression level of upregulated common DEGs among three groups by qRT-PCR. The isolated CD4 + T cell using CD4 microbeads of a total of 6 patients, 3 carriers and 9 normal specimens were included. The result showed that the mRNA expression levels of gene CADM1 and RGS13 in patients were higher than those in carriers and healthy donors, although there was no statistical difference between patients and carriers, and the expression levels of carriers tended to be higher than those in normal people (Figure 1D and E). Previously, CADM1 has been revealed to be highly expressed in HTLV-1-infected CD4 + T cells. Our study confirmed this result by single-cell profiling. RGS13, a member of the regulators of G protein signaling (RGS) family, participates in cellular communication. The role of RGS13 in ATL needs to be investigated. Conclusions This study is the first time to analyze the single-cell RNA level of ATL patients, HTLV-1 virus carriers and normal people. The peripheral blood cell composition of the patient is significantly different from that of the carriers and healthy donors, while it is similar between carriers and normal people. CD4 + T cells are the main cell population of patients. The proportion of CD4 + CD25 + Foxp3 + Treg cells increased gradually in healthy people, carriers and patients. DEGs analysis showed that CADM1 and RGS13 were highly expressed in CD4 + T cells of patients, followed by carriers, validated by 18 clinical samples. However, the molecular mechanism of RGS13 in the process from HTLV-1 infection to ATL needs to be further studied. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Hu: Astellas Pharma, Inc.: Research Funding.



Blood ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 110 (11) ◽  
pp. 3881-3881
Author(s):  
Xiangshan Cao ◽  
Xiaobao Xie ◽  
Aaihua Li ◽  
Guoqiang Qiu

Abstract Human CD4+CD25+ regulatory T (Treg) cells suppress antigen-specific T cell immune response and contribute to peripheral tolerance. However, little is known about the role of Treg cells in the pathogenesis of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). In this study, the proportion of CD4+CD25+ Treg cells in the peripheral blood of three groups of people [the patients with ALL who had never received any chemotherapy before, the patients with ALL who had achieved partial remission (PR) or complete remission (CR) after chemotherapy and the healthy donors] was evaluated by flow cytometry. The expression level of Foxp3 mRNA of each group was examined by real-time RT-PCR. In vitro, the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy donors were cultured in the serum of ALL patients without chemotherapy; each group was divided into sub-groups according to various serum doses. After co-cultured for 72 hours, the cells of all the groups were harvested separately and further tested the number of CD4+CD25+ Treg cells and the mRNA expression of Foxp3. The results showed that both the percentage of CD4+CD25+ T cells and the mRNA expression level of Foxp3 in patients with chemotherapy were significantly higher than those of the healthy donors and patients without chemotherapy (P<0.01 and P<0.01). Although the population of CD4+CD25+ T cells in ALL patients without chemotherapy was almost the same to that in the healthy donors (P>0.05), the expression of Foxp3 mRNA in former was higher (P<0.05) .The serum derived from ALL patients without chemotherapy remarkably increased the proportion of CD4+CD25+ T cells and the expression level of Foxp3 mRNA in co-cultured system, both of which were statistically higher than those in controls (P<0.05 and P<0.01) and did not vary with the serum dose. These results suggest that the chemotherapy may exert an influence on the production of CD4+CD25+ Treg cells and CD4+CD25+ Treg cells may play an important role in the pathogenesis of ALL.





Author(s):  
Kuan Lai ◽  
Wenjing Zhang ◽  
Songshan Li ◽  
Zhiwen Zhang ◽  
Shuangde Xie ◽  
...  

Abstract Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is a chronic and potentially life-threatening autoimmune blistering disease. Aberrant mTOR pathway activity is involved in many autoimmune diseases. This study investigated the correlation of mTOR pathway (PI3K/AKT/mTOR/p70S6K) activity with the loss of balance in T helper 2/regulatory T (Th2/Treg) cells in the peripheral blood of PV patients. CD4+ T cells were isolated from 15 PV patients and 15 healthy controls (HCs), the ratios of Th2/CD4+ T cells and Treg/CD4+ T cells, the activity of the mTOR pathway (PI3K/AKT/mTOR/p70S6K), the transcription factors and cytokines of Th2 and Treg cells were detected. Primary CD4+ T cells from PV patients were cultured under Th2- or Treg-polarizing conditions with or without rapamycin in vitro. We found that PV patients showed significantly elevated serum IL-4 when compared with HCs, and serum IL-4 level was positively correlated with the titer of anti-Dsg1/3 antibody and disease severity, while the serum TGF-β level was negatively correlated with the titer of anti-Dsg3 antibody and disease severity. Meanwhile, PV patients showed increased Th2/CD4+ T cell ratio; decreased Treg/CD4+ T cell ratio; elevated mRNA of PI3K, AKT, mTOR and protein of PI3K (P85), AKT, p-AKT (Ser473), mTOR, p-mTOR (Ser2448), p-p70S6K (Thr389), GATA3; reduced protein of forkhead box protein 3. Rapamycin inhibited Th2 cell differentiation and promoted Treg cell differentiation in vitro. These data suggest a close association between mTOR pathway activation and the loss of balance in Th2/Treg cells in peripheral blood of PV patients. Inhibiting mTORC1 can help restore the Th2/Treg balance.





Blood ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 110 (11) ◽  
pp. 357-357
Author(s):  
S. Mittal ◽  
N.A. Marshall ◽  
L. Duncan ◽  
D.J. Culligan ◽  
R.N. Barker ◽  
...  

Abstract Regulatory T (Treg) cells contribute to immune evasion by malignancies. To investigate their importance in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), we enumerated Treg cells in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and involved tissues from 30 newly diagnosed patients. CD25+FoxP3+CD127lowCD4+ Treg cells were increased markedly in PBMC (median=20.4% CD4 T cells, n=20) versus healthy controls (median=3.2%, n=13; p<0. 001, rank sum test) and correlated with serum lactate dehydrogenase (n=14; Rs=0.79, p <0.0001) and disease stage. The median Treg percentage of CD4 T cells from early stages (Ann Arbor stage I and II, n=4) was 12.2%, whereas it was 25.4% in advanced disease (Ann Arbor stages III, IV or bulky stage II, ≥5cm, n=10; p =0.013). We also enumerated Tr1 cells, both in peripheral blood and involved tissue samples, and again compared with healthy controls but no significant differences were noted. We documented poor proliferation of T cells with mitogen ConA and almost none with recall antigens PPD and DPT in both PBMC and involved tissue samples (n=9). T cell hyporesponsiveness was reversed by depleting CD25+ cells (n=4), or by adding anti-CTLA-4 (n=3), supporting the view that Treg cells explain the systemic immunosuppression seen in NHL. A high proportion of Treg cells was also present in involved tissues (median=38.8% CD4 T cells, n=15) versus reactive nodes (median=11.6%, n=2, p=0.02). Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that a regulatory phenotype is induced from conventional T cells within the tumor microenvironment. When autologous CD25- PBMC fractions were incubated with tumor cells from patients (n=6) in vitro, there was consistent strong induction and then expansion of cells with the CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ phenotype of classic ‘natural’ Treg cells as indicated by CFSE dilution. This induction was dependent on tumor dose and was seen when we depleted lymphoid dendritic cells from the involved tissue cell suspension using anti-CD304, or enriched the tumor cells by positive selection of CD20+ cells. This population was confirmed to be suppressive in function (n=3). We also investigated the mechanisms of this induction. Both cell-cell contact and soluble factors appeared important. In two of four cases, some induction was also noted with transwell experiments or with tumor cell conditioned supernatant, indicating that in these cases soluble factors are also involved apart from direct cell-cell contact mechanism. Reports elsewhere suggest roles for prostaglandin E2, tryptophan catabolism, IL-9 and PD-1 interaction with its ligands in inducing a Treg phenotype. Thus, we used cyclooxygenase inhibitors aspirin and sulindac, the indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase (IDO) inhibitor 1-methyl tryptophan (1MT), anti-IL-9 receptor antibody and blocking anti-PDL-1 or anti-PDL-2 antibodies in four samples. None of these reagents inhibited Treg induction apart from one case where both anti-PDL-1 and anti-PDL-2 blocking antibodies inhibited Treg induction. We conclude that NHL cells are powerful inducers of Treg cells, which may represent a new therapeutic target.



Blood ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 122 (21) ◽  
pp. 5280-5280
Author(s):  
Eleni Dikaia Ioannidou ◽  
Vassiliki Mpakou ◽  
Myrofora Vikentiou ◽  
Eugenia Konsta ◽  
Frieda Kontsioti ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction T regulatory cells are immunosuppressive cells, which are considered to play an important role in the regulation of immune response to cancer, by restraining autoreactive lymphocytes. Several studies, mostly in solid tumors, revealed that the number of Treg cells increases as the disease progresses and that Treg cells act by suppressing anti-tumor immune response, through the targeting of other immune cells, such as T cells, B cells and dendritic cells. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a lymphoid malignancy, characterized by both, immunodeficiency and autoimmune disorders. Accumulated data indicate the role of T cells in the pathogenesis and development of CLL and reveal an increased number of Treg cells in CLL patients. The scope of this study is the analysis of the functional role of Tregs derived from the peripheral blood of CLL patients, mainly on B-CLL cells, and its correlation with well known prognostic factors. Methods Treg cells derived from mononuclear cells of 28 untreated B-cell CLL patients with a median age 62 (44-88) and 17 healthy donors were analyzed through Flow cytometry. Patients were classified according to Rai classification as Rai I:19, Rai II:4, Rai III:5 and according to Binet as Binet A: 24, Binet B:3 and Binet C:1. The following antibodies were used for the fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) analysis: 1. CD45Ro-FITC/CD45RA-PE/CD4-ECD/CD25-PC5/CD127-PC7 2. CD1a-FITC/CD137-PE/CD4-ECD/CD25-PC5/CD127-PC7 3. CD95-FITC/cyCD152-PE/CD4-ECD/CD25-PC5/CD127-PC7 4. beads/FoxP3-PE/CD4-ECD/CD25-PC5/CD127-PC7 5. Annexin V-FITC/CD4-ECD/CD25-PC5/CD127-PC7 Moreover, peripheral blood was obtained from 15 patients with B-cell CLL. Mononuclear cells were isolated using Ficoll-Paque gradient centrifugation. CD4+CD25+ (Treg cells), CD4+CD25- (T effectοr cells, Teff), CD5+CD19+ (B-CLL) and CD5+CD19- (Normal B, NB) cells were separated using magnetic antibody cell sorting. To test the functionality of the assayed Tregs, the isolated cell populations were cultured in a 96-well plate (Tregs, Teff, B-CLL, NB cells, Tregs:Teff in a 4:1 ratio, B-cll:Tregs in 1:20 ratio, B-cll:Teff in 1:20 ratio, NB cells:Tregs in 1:20 ratio, NB cells:Teff in 1:20 ratio) and their proliferative capacity was measured using the BrdU assay. Results FACS analysis of the Treg cells resulted at the following observations: (1) The co-expression of the CD45RA-CD45RO markers was significantly higher in patients’ samples than in controls (p=0.047). (2) No significant differences were observed between patients and controls, regarding the expression of the CD1α marker, as well as the expression of CD95 and CD152 markers. (3) The Treg absolute cell number (cells/μL), estimated either as the number of CD4+ CD25+ CD127- cells or as the number of CD4+ CD25+ FoxP3+ cells, was statistically significantly higher in patients’ samples than in controls (CD127- p=0.047, FoxP3+ p= 0.036). (4) Annexin V expression in Treg cells from B- CLL patients was significantly lower compared to controls (p=0.027). Following the purification and culturing of T and B cells from B-cell CLL patients’ samples, functional analysis of the different cell populations was performed using the BrdU proliferation assay. We observed that Tregs were able to significantly suppress the proliferation of the Teff cells (p=0.002). After the co-culturing of NB cells (CD5+CD19-)and Tregs (CD4+CD25+) we found that NB cells seemed to significantly increase the proliferation of Treg cells, compared to the proliferation capacity of the Tregs when cultured alone (p=0.047). Moreover, we observed that Teff (CD4+CD25-) were able to significantly suppress the proliferation of B-CLL cells (CD5+CD19+), when co-cultured (B-CLL: Teff, 1:20 ratio) (p=0.05). Conclusions In B-cell CLL patients, Treg cells are significantly higher and present with lower apoptotic levels compared to healthy donors’ samples. The functional analysis of Treg cells indicates that they can effectively suppress the proliferation of T effector cells. Moreover, T effector cells seem to suppress the proliferation of B-CLL cells, while NB cells increase the proliferation of Treg cells. These observations could probably indicate that at the early stages of the disease, where NB cells are more aberrant, Treg cells’ activity is induced, leading to Teff cells’ suppression and therefore, to an indirect induction of B-CLL cells’ proliferation. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.



2003 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. JO ◽  
T. MATSUMOTO ◽  
S. YADA ◽  
K. FUJISAWA ◽  
M. ESAKI ◽  
...  


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