ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the clinical significance of apoptosis of B cells in the peripheral blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Methods The proportions of B cells in the peripheral blood (PB) of 51 active and 30 remission patients with RA and 80 healthy controls were detected by flow cytometry.B cells in the PB of 10 active,10 remission and 10 healthy individuals were isolated by MACS.The apoptosis of cultured B cells,which were collected at 24,48,72,96 h respectively,were assessed by flow cytometry.ANOVA,t test and,Spearman correlation analysis were used for statistical analysis.Results The proportions of B cells marked as CD19 and CD22 in the PB of active and remission patients with RA and healthy controls were (26±11)％,(12±8)％,(10±7)％,(26±10)％,(12±8)％,(11±5)％ respectively.The proportions of B cells in the PB of active patients was significantly higher than that of remission patients and healthy controls (P＜0.01).There was positive correlation between B cell proportion in the PB of active patients and DAS 28 and IgG level.The proportion of apoptosis of B cells in the PB with active patients was less than healthy controls.Conclusion The pathway of apoptosis of B cells in the PB of active patients is inhibited,which could increase B cell proportion.Moreover,the high proportion of B cells in the PB of active patients is closely related to disease activity.