Published in:
01-11-2018 | Original Article
Evaluation of regulatory T lymphocytes and IL2Ra and FOXP3 gene expression in peripheral mononuclear cells from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Authors:
Sara Rashid Chehreh Bargh, Abbas Tafakhori, Farimah Masoumi, Farzaneh Rahmani, Mona Ahmadi, Afshin Namdar, Maryam Azimi, Parsova Tavasolian, Sima Habibi, Babak Zamani, Marziyeh Maserrat, Maryam Sadr, Farshid Noorbakhsh, Nima Rezaei
Published in:
Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971 -)
|
Issue 4/2018
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Abstract
Background
Loss of neuroprotective role of CD4+ helper T cells, regulatory T cells, and M2 microglia constitutively results in the rapid neural death in the “rapidly progressive phase” of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Aim
We aimed to investigate relative count of CD4+ and regulatory T lymphocytes and expression level of IL2Ra and FOXP3 genes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with ALS.
Method
We performed a flow cytometric analysis on PBMC from 38 patients with ALS and 32 controls to determine the count of CD4+ and CD4+CD25+ cells. Quantitative real-time PCR analyses were implemented to determine the level of expression of FOXP3 and IL-2Rα (CD25) genes in the peripheral blood mononucleated cells.
Results
We found a significant higher proportion of CD4+ T cells (p value < 0.001), along with a significantly reduced proportion of CD4+CD25+ Treg cells (p value = 0.001, p value = 0.02), in the peripheral blood of patient’s with ALS.
Conclusion
The results of our study are in line with the hypothesis that in the early phase of ALS, neuroprotective helper T cells infiltrate in the affected areas in the lumbar spinal cord. This was reflected in higher peripheral percentage of CD4+ helper T cells and higher expression of FOXP3 and IL-2Rα. The observed demise in the number of active CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells might indicate early signs of progression to later stages of ALS in our study group. Interestingly, disease duration was the sole independent significant determining factor that predicted CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cell counts in the peripheral blood of patients at various stages of ALS, according to a logistic regression model.