A Comparative Study Of Th17,Treg And IL-6 In Peripheral Blood Of Thymoma Patients With Myasthenia Gravis And No Myasthenia Gravis

Objective:To explore the changes of Th17 cells, Treg cells and IL-6 in peripheral blood between the simple thymoma patients and the thymoma patients with myasthenia gravis, to further explore the correlation between Th17 cells, Treg cells and IL-6 in thymoma patients with myasthenia gravis.Methods:To Select 30 cases of thymoma patients from May 2012 to February 2014 in the Tianjin Medical University General Hospital Cardiothoracic Surgery, including 18 cases of thymoma patient with myasthenia gravis, as thymoma-MG (+) group, and 12 cases of thymoma patient with no myasthenia gravis or other autoimmune diseases or neoplastic diseases, also was known simply thymoma patients, as thymoma-MG (-) group, and selecting 16 healthy cases as the control group above the same period and similar to the patient’s age and sex. The 2ml fresh peripheral blood samples was extracted from the three groups studied, with EDTA anticoagulant, included lml of blood was separated by flow cytometry to study the percentage of Th17 and Treg cells in peripheral blood, and the other lml blood was centrifuged by centrifuges at 1000 rpm for 20 min and the supernatant home was detected the levels of IL-6 in peripheral blood by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Statistical software SPSS 17.0 was used to analyze and compare the relationship between Thl7, Treg and IL-6 in the three groups, and study the correlation between Th17, Treg and IL-6 in the thymoma-MG (+) patients.Results: ①hl7 and IL-6 in peripheral blood of Thymoma-MG (+) group were significantly higher than thymoma-MG (-) group and healthy control group (p<0.05), and Treg was lower than the thymoma-MG (-) patients (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference with the healthy control group (p> 0.05); ②Th17 and IL-6 in peripheral blood of Thymoma-MG (-) group were significantly higher than the healthy control group (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference than the healthy control group in Treg (p> 0.05); ③ Th17 and IL-6 were significantly correlated (y= 0.793, p= 0.000<0.05) in Thymoma-MG (+) group; Treg and IL-6 were negative correlation in Thymoma-MG (+) group, but there was no significant difference (y=-0.383, p= 0.117> 0.05).Conclusion: ①Th17 and IL-6 in the simple thymoma patients and thymoma patients with MG were significantly higher, indicating the changs of Th17 and IL-6 was happened in the pathogenesis process of thymoma and MQmay relate with their pathogenesis. ②Treg did not change significantly in the simple thymoma patients and thymoma patients with MG, function regulator changes of Treg cells may be happened,and know its function by studying Foxp3 and related cytokines.③IL-6 was significantly correlated with Thl7and was negatively correlated with Treg in thymoma patients with MG, suggesting IL-6 may be an important cytokine to regulate of balance of Thl7 cells and Treg cells,and expression of Th17 cell may be down by controling the level of IL-6.④To further compare the changes of Th17 and Treg in thymoma patients with MG and the simple thymoma patients in the thymectomy preoperative and postoperative, and to compare the changes of Th17 and Treg in thymoma tissue with MG or no MG and normal thymus tissue, may be important to elaborate the role of Th17 and Treg in the pathogenesis of MG and thymoma and clinical treatment.