Study on Peripheral Blood Dendritic Cells in Patients with Recurrent Genital Herpes / 中华皮肤科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate peripheral blood dendritic cells (DC) responding to herpesvirus infection in the patients with recurrent genital herpes and the expression of immune molecules on mature DC induced by the cytokines in vitro. Methods Using three-color flow cytometry, we studied the phenotype expression of CD11c, CD123, CDla, CD80, CD86, CD40 and CD83 on the two subsets of DC(CD11c+DC and CD123+DC) in peripheral blood. The monocytes isolated from the blood were cultured with recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin-4 (IL-4) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-?) from 20 patients with recurrent genital herpes (RGH) and 18 healthy controls. Results The number of CD11c+ DC in the peripheral blood increased significantly in the peripheral blood cells of RGH patients (2.54% ? 1.19%) in comparison with that of healthy controls (1.77% ? 0.83%) (P 0.05). Conclusions Peripheral blood CD11c+DC activated by uptaking viral antigens in the patients with RGH results in a high level expression of co-stimulatory molecules on DC and enhance antigen-presenting functions, which is essential for intiating antiviral immune response directly by T lymphocytes.