Study On The CD4～+CD25～+ T Regulatory Cells In Patients With Primary Biliary Cirrhosis

It has been hypothesized that destruction of biliary tract in primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) would be closely correlated with proliferation of autoreactive T cell. The aims of this study were to investigate the pathogenesis from immunological regulation level through analysis of CD4~+CD25~+ T regulatory cells (Tregs) and forkhead transcription factor protein 3 (FOXP3) in patients with PBC by means of flow cytometry, RT-PCR and immune suppression analysis. Our research proves that the frequence of Tregs and expression level of mRNA of FOXP3 of patients with PBC in different course of disease are significantly lower than that of health control. In addition, the number of FOXP3~+Tregs is also lower in tissue of liver of patients with PBC. The proliferation suppression of Tregs is not change between PBC and health control. The coding sequence of FOXP3 gene was cloned and inserted into plasmid toconstruct a retrovirus expression vector. The induced FOXP3~+ Tregs by retrovirus expression vector pMSCV-MIGR-F0XP3 can suppress the proliferation of CD4+CD25~T responder cells in vitro, which offers an experiment foundament for...