ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the levels of peripheral blood CD8+ CD28- regulatory lymphocytes and their clinical values in the patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Method From October 2005 to August 2008, 51 patients with active rehpsing-remitting MS were enrrolled from Department of Neurology of the First Affil-iated Hospital of Wenzliou Medical College. The diagnostic criteria for MS were the 2005 revisions to the "McDon-ald criteria". All the admitted patients received 1 g of methylprednisoione per day intravenously for 5 days, fol-lowed by 60 mg prednisone per day orally for 12 days,and tapered in 6 weeks. Fourteen patients were reevaluated after corticosteroid therapy. Twenty healthy individuals ,as normal controls,matched for age and sex with the MS patients were also enrolled in this study. The percentages of peripheral blood T cells (CD8+ CD28-, CD8+CD28+, CD8+, CD4+ CD8-) were measured by flow cytometric analysis. Parametric statistical analysis were per-formed using standard methods, and linear regression analysis was conducted using Pearson correlation test. Re-sults (1)Compared with controls,the patients with active MS had significantly lower percentage of CD8+ CD28-T cells [(18.48±9.89)% vs. (24.48±4.86)%, P <0.01], and higher percentage of CD8+ CD28+ T cells [(12.23±4.31) % vs. (8.55±3.49) %, P <0.01]. (2)The percentage of CD8+ CD28- T cells was negative-ly correlated with that of CD4+ CDS- T cells (r = -0.488, P < 0.01). (3) After corticosteroid therapy, the per-eentage of peripheral blood CD8+ CD28- / CD8+ CD28+ T cells didn' t significantly decrease or increase in 14 ac-tive MS patients (P > 0.05). Conclusions The decrease of peripheral blood CD8+ CD28- regulatory T cells might be associated with the pathogenesis of MS, and CD8+ CD28- regulatory T cells perhaps played their roles through CD4+ T cells. Corticosteroid therapy could not reverse the levels of CD8+ CD28- T cells.
