Local infiltration of tissue-resident memory CD4 + T cells in lesions of patients with pemphigus and its clinical implications / 中华皮肤科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the local infiltration of tissue-resident memory CD4 + T (CD4 + T RM) cells in lesions of patients with pemphigus and its clinical implications. Methods:From September 2017 to December 2018, 20 patients with pemphigus and 15 healthy human controls were collected from Department of Dermatology, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Flow cytometry was performed to determine the proportion of CD4 + T RM cells in skin lesions of pemphigus patients and normal skin of healthy controls. The degree of CD4 + T RM cell infiltration in skin lesions was compared among different body sites of the patients with pemphigus, and the correlation between the proportion of CD4 + T RM cells and the time to disease control was analyzed. Normally distributed data were analyzed by using t test, and non-normally distributed data by using non-parametric test; the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to analyze correlations of the proportion of CD4 + T RM cells with pemphigus disease area index (PDAI) scores and circulating anti-desmoglein (Dsg) antibody titers. Results:Among the 20 patients, there were 16 with pemphigus vulgaris and 4 with pemphigus foliaceus. All the patients had skin involvement, 14 lesional tissue samples were taken from the trunk, and 6 from the limbs. There was no significant difference between the healthy control group and pemphigus group in terms of age, gender or biopsy sites (all P > 0.05) . The proportions of CD3 + T cells (72.75% ± 8.22%) and CD4 + T RM cells (44.05% ± 14.27%) in the skin lesions of patients with pemphigus were significantly higher than those in the skin tissues of the healthy controls (31.33% ± 8.72%, 12.60% ± 5.12%, t = 14.24, 9.10, respectively, both P < 0.001) . Among the patients with pemphigus, the proportion of CD4 + T RM cells was significantly higher in the skin lesions on the trunk (49.57% ± 12.32%) than in those on the limbs (31.17% ± 9.75%, t = 3.23, P < 0.05) . The proportion of CD4 + T RM cells in the skin lesions was positively correlated with the PDAI scores ( r2 = 0.246, P = 0.026) , but not correlated with serum titers of circulating anti-Dsg1 ( r2 = 0.137, P > 0.05) or anti-Dsg3 ( r2 = 0.162, P > 0.05) antibodies in the patients. During the treatment with systemic glucocorticoids, the proportion of CD4 + T RM cells in the skin lesions was significantly higher in the patients whose lesions could not be controlled within 4 weeks than in those whose lesions could be controlled within 4 weeks ( t = 3.22, P < 0.05) . Conclusion:The proportion of CD4 + T RM cells markedly increased in the skin lesions of patients with pemphigus, which may be related to the severity of the disease and response to treatment.