Abstract
This study was performed to build region-specific reference ranges of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets for Chinese healthy adults from the young to the elderly and analyze the trends of changes in lymphocyte subsets for evaluating the impact of age on the values. 151 healthy adults aged 19–86 were recruited based on the SENIEUR protocol. Three sets of reference ranges were finally built applicable for the healthy young (19–44 years), middle-aged (45–64 years) and elder adults (⩾65). Comparisons in parameters among the three cohorts showed that a statistically significant increase in CD16CD56+ NK cell was observed between the middle-aged and elder cohorts, whereas for the majority of the parameters, a significant decline was observed between the young and the middle-aged cohorts. Further results showed that inverse correlations were observed between the age and CD19+ B, CD3+ T, CD3+CD4+ T, CD4+CD45RA+CD62L+ naïve T cell and CD4+CD28+/CD4+, while the positive one was identified between the age and the NK cell. These significant changes of the most of immune parameters provided evidence for immunosenescence. Notably, T cell activation markers of CD8+CD38+ and CD8+HLA-DR+ showed reverse trends of association with age, which provides a clue for further researches on the mechanisms underlying the paradoxical clinical presentation of the elder patients.
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Supported by Peking Union Medical College Hospital Research Fund for Young Investigators (Grant No. 2006108), the Specialized New Teacher Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 20070023057), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2006CB504204), the Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of Anti-HIV Regimens and HIV Resistance Testing in Beijing HIV/AIDS Patients Receiving HAART (Grant No. D0906003040491), Clinical Disciplines’ Key Project of the Ministry of Health: the study on the clinical characteristics, virology and immune responses in AIDS patients receiving HAART and Peking Union Medical College Hospital Fok YingTung Specialized Research Fund for Lung Cancer.
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Jiao, Y., Qiu, Z., Xie, J. et al. Reference ranges and age-related changes of peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in Chinese healthy adults. SCI CHINA SER C 52, 643–650 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-009-0086-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-009-0086-4