Expression of regulatory B cells in rheumatoid arthritis and its correlation with disease severity / 临床检验杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the IL-10+CD19+ regulatory B cells (Breg) in peripheral blood of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and analyze the correlation between the expression of IL-10+CD19+ Breg cells and disease severity. @*Methods@#A total of 40 patients with active RA and 30 healthy individuals (healthy controls, HC) were involved in this study. The peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated. The isolated PBMC were co-cultured with CpG oligodeoxynucleotide 2006 (CpG ODN 2006) and phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) in vitro. Flow cytometry was employed to analyze the expression of Breg before and after stimulation. The correlations of Breg expression with ESR, CRP and DAS28 were analyzed. @*Results@#Before stimulation in vitro, the expression of Breg in PBMC of RA group and HC group were 1.92%(1.58%, 2.56%) and 2.04%(1.73%, 2.93%) respectively. There was no significant difference between the two groups (P=0.258). After induction in vitro, the expression of Breg of RA group [13.00%(9.75%, 14.85%)] was significantly higher than that of HC group [9.12%(6.83%, 10.22%)], P＜0.001. Spearman correlation analysis showed that Breg expression was negatively correlated with DAS28 (P=0.002), but not with ESR and CRP (P＞0.05). @*Conclusion@#The expression of Breg was significantly increased after stimulation in vitro and negatively correlated with DAS28, which indicated Breg may play important regulatory roles in pathogenesis and development of RA.