ABSTRACT
ObjectiveTo investigate the D8/17 antigen expression of patients with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in Guangdong province and study the antigen's characteristics.Methods The level of D8/17 antigen expression on B lymphocytes was determined with flow cytometry assay in 96 RHD patients and 83 unaffected controls.The percentage of B-cells expressing the D8/17 antigen having more than 10％ was considered to be positive. D8/17 antigen was extracted by immunopreeipitation,and the antigen characteristics was analyzed by tandem mass spectrometry. Results The mean percentage of B-cells expressing the D8/17 antigen was (85.36 ± 15.15)％ in the RHD patients and (82.89 ±4.55)％ in the controls,with no significant difference between the two groups ( P =0.436).Moreover,the positive rate of the D8/17 cxprcssion was 100％ in either the RHD patients or the controls.The molecular weight of D8/17 antigen was found to be 40 000-67 000,and the purified protein was most likely to match moesin or β-actin.ConclusionsB-cell antigen D8/17 is not associated with RHD in Guangdong province of China.Moesin or β-actin is the most likely protein to match D8/17 antigen.