Apoptosis And Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

We used three fluorescence and flow cytomitry to investigate the apoptosis of the subpopulation of fresh lymphocytes and their roles in the pathogeneses of SLE patients. Compared with normal controls(NC),the apoptosis of T cells, especially CD4+T cells, increased significantly in SLE while the percentage of CD4+T cells and CD4/CD8 ratio decreased significantly. After glucocorticoids(GC) treatment, the percentage of apoptic cells as well as CD4/CD8 ratio significantly increased. The apoptosis of T lymphcytes cultured with SLE serum were highly more than that cultured with NC serum, while anti-IL-10 antibody blocking the IL-10 activation reduced the apoptosis of CD4+ and CD8+T cells induced by SLE serum. ELISA was employed to test sFas, sFasL in the supematants of the cultured PBMC .It was found that the levels of sFas, sFasL increased in the supernatant of SLE serum cultured cells but decreased in that of the SLE serum and anti-IL-10 antibody cultured cells. The expression of Fas and FasL gene of the cultured PBMC were detected by lightcycler fluorescent quantification system and an increased Fas mRNA in the SLE serum cultured cells was conformed. In conclusion, the apoptosis of T lymphocytes abnormally increased and it'spossible that GC can accelerate the apoptosis and ameliorate the CD4/CD8 ratio. The highly percentage of apoptic T cells in SLE can be a result of high level of IL-10 in SLE serum, IL-10 maybe induce the abnormal activated T cells into apoptosis(Activation induced cells death,AICD) by Fas-FasL.