Impact Of CD4~+CD25~+ Regulatory T Cells On Proliferation And Immunocompetence Of Effector T Cells In Patients With Graves’ Disease

Objective In order to provide an important reference for clinical diagnosis and treatment of Graves’ disease(GD), we study on the number and function of regulatory T cells(Tregs) in peripheral blood of the disease, and investigate the effect of this cell subset in the pathogenesis and development of GD.Methods Tregs’ quantitative detection of 20 cases of GD patients and 10 healthy control(HC) were operated by flow cytometry. 3H incorporation assay were used to measure the effect of Tregs cells on effector cells. And we also detected cytokines by ELISA.Results No significant change in the number of Tregs of GD patients, noting that pathogenesis of GD could not be attributed to Changes in the number of Tregs.Compared with the HC, Inhibitory function of Treg from patients with GD decreases significantly. Results indicate that there is dysfunction of Tregs in patients with GD. Tregs play a critical inhibitory role by regulating the secretion of cytokines, so the negative regulatory factor of IL-10 decreased significantly in GD group, suggesting that decreased function of Tregs are related with IL-10 level. Secretion of IL-2 and IL-17 in GD group was higher than that in HC group. IL-2 promotes cell proliferation. When IL-2 is at a high level, inhibition function of Tregs is reduced. The interaction between Tregs and Th17, secreted by Th17 cells, are complex. Tregs, Th17 cells and associated cytokines work together to form a network. When function of Tregs are defected, balance among Tregs, Th17 cells and cytokines lost. The balance shift to Th17 with high expression of IL-17.Conclusion There is not significantly change(P>0.05) between GD patients and HC in the Treg cells accounted for the proportion of CD4+ T cells.Compared with the HC, Inhibitory function of Treg from patients with GD decreases significantly. Cytokine secretion between two groups also has significant difference. IL-10 secretion of healthy control group is significantly higher than patients group, while secretion of IL-2 and IL-17 is significantly lower than patients group.