Expression Of HDACs In B Cells From Patients With Systemic Sclerosis

Objective Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a diffuse cutaneous and visceral organ connective tissue fibrosis or cirrhosis, finally to shrink as the characteristics of the disease. Its etiology and pathogenesis is complex and is still unclear. In recent years, many studies have found epigenetic pathogenesis plays an important role in SSc. Epigenetic regulation is not related to DNA sequence alterations in gene expression regulation mode, the mechanism including DNA methylation, histone modifications and chromatin remodeling. Histone modifications plays an important role in transcriptional regulation. Histone modification enzymes, such as HATs, HDACs, HMTs control the chromatin structure and gene expression, thus participate in gene transcription regulation of specific sites. So far, there is no histone modificatio research in the patients with SSc. So our research focus on histone deacetylase (HDACs) expression levels in B cells of SSc patients, to explore the histone modifications in the pathogenesis of SSc and open a new way for the pathogenesis of SSc.Methods PBMCs (peripheral blood mononuclear cells) were isolated from the peripheral venous blood of20SSc patients and16healthy controls by density gradient centrifugation, B cells(CD19) were isolated from the PBMC using magnetic cell separation technique, then the mRNA levels of HDACs were measured by real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) and the expression level of HDAC2protein was measured by western boltResult Real-time RT-PCR shows that HDAC2mRNA expression levels is lower than healthy controls. There was no significant difference in HDAC1, HDAC3, HDAC6expression levels betweem SSc and normal controls; Western bolt result is same as Real-time RT-PCR result.Conclusion The decrease in expression level of HDAC2in B cells probably affect histone acetylation levels and chromatin structure, finaly affecting particular gene transcription regulation.