Detection of circulating Toll-like receptor 2 and 4 and CD4 + CD25 + regulatory T cells in patients with HBV-related liver cirrhosis / 中华微生物学和免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To detect circulating CD4 + CD25 + regulatory T cells (Treg) and Toll-like receptor(TLR)2 and TLR4 expression on the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with HBV-related liver cirrhosis (LC), and to explore the correlation between them. Methods PBMCs isolated from 30 LC patients, 21 chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients and 16 normal controls(NC) were stained with fluorescent labeling anti-TLR2-PE, anti-TLR4-APC, anti-CD14-FITC monoclonal antibodies and anti-CD4-PerCP, anti-CD25-FITC, anti-CD127-PE. Samples were detected by flow cytometry. Statistic analysis be-tween groups was performed by Kruskal-Wallis H test. Spearman rank correlation was used to analyze the correlation of Treg and TLR2, TLR4. Results The expression of TLR2 and TLR4 were significantly up-reg-ulated in patients with LC than those in the controls (TLR2 200.3 ± 96.8 vs 94.1 ± 17.6, P < 0.05 ; TLR432.1 ±7.2 vs 17.8 ±3.9, P<0.05). The expression of TLR4 was significantly increased in pa-tients with LC than those in patients with CHB (TLR4 32. 1 ± 7.2 vs 25.2 ± 8.3, P < 0.05), but there were no differences of TLR2 expression between LC and CHB(200.3 ± 96.8 vs 214.0 ± 72.6, P > 0.05). Treg/CD4+ T cells were 5.07% ±1.43%, 5.88% ±1.66%, 4.21% ±1.24% in patients with LC, CHB and NC, respectively. Treg/CD4+ T cells were significantly increased in patients with CHB than those in pa-tients with NC(P<0. 05) and LC(P <0.05), but there were no differences between LC and NC(P > 0.05). TLR4 expression and Treg were positive correlation (r = 0. 469, P = 0. 032) and TLB2 expression were negative correlation in patients with LC (r = -0.428, P = 0.021). Conclusion The expression of TLR2 and TLR4 were up-regulated on PBMCs in patients with LC. It seems to be expression of TLR2 and TLR4 in-volved in the pathogenesis of LC.