Detection and clinical significance of peripheral blood follicular helper T cells in autoimmune encephalitis patients / 中国免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the proportion of follicular helper T cells(Tfh) and its clinical significance in peripheral blood of patients with autoimmune encephalitis(AE).Methods:①Cerebrospinal fluid(CSF) specimen was collected from the patients who were confirmed to have autoantibodies associated with autoimmune encephalitis,and the CSF was incubated with frozen sections of rat brain tissue,and the immunofluorescence staining was performed. ②17 patients were collected (3 cases with anti LGI1 antibody positive,3 cases with anti GABAR antibody positive,11 cases with anti NMDAR antibody positive, and 1 case with anti NMDAR antibody,anti GABAR antibody and anti AMPA2 antibody positive).All of the above,21 samples were collected with peripheral blood6 cases with no therapy;15 cases with therapy(contains 8 remission ones and 7 no remission ones).15 healthy controls(control group) were collected. The percentage of CD3+CD4+CXCR5+PD1+T cells were detected by flow cytometry (FCM).The correlation between the Tfh cells and the disease recovery was also analyzed.Results:①Cerebrospinal fluid of patients incubated with frozen sections of rat brain tissue,immunofluorescence staining results showed positive reaction.②The flow cytometry results showed that the percentage of peripheral blood Tfh cells in patients with untreated group was significantly higher than that in the control group(P<0.001),and after treatment the percentage of Tfh in no improved group was higher than improved group(P<0.05).But the percentage of Tfh cells had no statistical difference between the improved group and the control group(P=0.107).Conclusion:The increase of peripheral blood Tfh cells percentage in the AE patients may contribute to the occurrence and development of AE.