Expression of CXC chemokine receptor 5 in skin lesions of bullous pemphigoid and its significance / 中华皮肤科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the role of CXC chemokine receptor 5 (CXCR5) in the pathogenesis of bullous pemphigoid (BP) by detecting the expression of CXCR5 on follicular helper T (Tfh) cells in skin lesions of BP.Methods An immunohistochemical procedure was used to detect CXCR5 expression in biopsy specimens from skin lesions of 16 patients with BP and normal skin of 10 healthy individuals.Results CXCR5 was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm and membrane of Tfh cells in the basal cell layer of normal skin as well as in both basal cell layer and prickle cell layer of BP lesions.The number of CXCR5-positive ceils per high power field (× 400) was 11.16 ± 4.47 in normal skin specimens,significantly lower than that in lesional skin specimens (35.70 ± 12.20,t =6.07,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion CXCR5 may be involved in the pathogenesis of BP.