Expression Of Dendritic Cells And TNF-α In Peripheral Blood Of Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Background and Aim:With the development of immunology, the role of immune inflammation in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) attracts people's interest.recently, it was demonstrated that dendritic cells, which are key player of the immune inflammation, were implicated in the pathogenesis of SLE patients.To elucidate the role of dendritic cells in human SLE, we comparatively studied the mature status expressions and functional changes of dendritic cell in the peripheral blood of patients with SLE and healthy controls.Methods:1. Study patients:30 patients with SLE were recruited from the first affiliated hospital of Jinan university and Nanfang medical university from October 2009 to February 2011.Heart diseases, liver disease, diabetes, metabolic disease and the other autoimmune diseases were excluded.30 age-and sex-matched healthy persons were served as nomal controls(NC).2. The phenotypes of DCs in peripheral blood were detected by FCM(flow cytometry) in SLE patients and the NCs(normal controls). They were CD80+,CD83+,CD86+,CDla+,HLA-DR+.3.The concentrations of TNF-a are detected by ELISA kits in peripheral blood of SLE patients and the NCs(normal controls). Results:1. DCs showed higher positive cells with expression of CD80 and CDla(P<0.05), with the other molecules (CD83,CD86 and HLA-DR) slight but not greatly changed in SLE patients, compared to the controls(P>0.05).Besides, there was an positive correlation between level of CD80 and anti ds-DNA in SLE patients(P<0.05), and there was no correlation between level of the molecule CDla and anti ds-DNA(P>0.05).2. The data obtained from ELISA shows that the concentration of TNF-αin peripheral blood of SLE patients is higher than that in NC group(P<0.05). Besides, there was an positive correlation between level of TNF-αand anti ds-DNA in SLE patients(P<0.05), an increase of the concentration of TNF-αwith increase of the percentage of anti ds-DNA.3. There was no correlation between level of the molecules (CD80 and CD1a) and TNF-αin peripheral blood of SLE patients (P>0.05).Conclusions:1. The higher positive DCs with expression of CD80 and CD1a in peripheral blood of SLE patients, indicating an immune change of DCs from SLE patients, and this might be an intrinsic factor that lies in the pathogenesis of SLE. This detection method that the phenotypes of DCs in peripheral blood are detected by FCM is also more convenient.2. CD80 may play a role in the pathogenesis of SLE, and it might be a maker of the disease activity for the patients with SLE.3. The level of TNF-αin peripheral blood of patients with SLE may play a role in the pathogenesis of SLE, and it is related to the progress of disease, it may not be functional by CD80 pathway to achieve therapeutic effect.