The balance between intrahepatic IL-17+ T cells and Foxp3+ regulatory T cells plays an important role in HBV-related end-stage liver disease

BMC Immunology

Research Article

Hongli Liu¹  Yingren Zhao¹  Shulin Zhang¹  Yinghua Niu¹  Tianyan Chen¹  Shumei Lin¹  Hong'an Xue²  Donglin Yin³  Ruitian Yi³ 

[1] Department of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi Province, China;Department of Infectious Diseases, Second Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi Province, China;Medical College, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi Province, China;

关键词: Treg Cell;    Normal Control Group;    Chronic Liver Failure;    Immunochemistry Staining;    Related Liver Failure;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2172-12-47

 received in 2010-12-13, accepted in 2011-08-19,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroudIL-17+ T helper cells and Foxp3+ regulatory T cells are CD4+ T helper cells with reciprocally regulated differentiation and function. Their frequency and function vary in patients with chronic hepatitis B. In this study, we investigated the balance between IL-17+ T cells and Foxp3+ regulatory T cells and illustrated their function in the aggravation of chronic hepatitis B (CHB).ResultsTwenty-six patients with chronic HBV -related liver failure (CLF), thirty-one patients with acute on chronic HBV-related liver failure (ACLF) and twelve normal controls were enrolled in our study. The expressions of IL-17, Foxp3, CD4, CD8 and perforin in liver tissue were measured by immunochemistry for the evaluation of liver-infiltrating lymphocytes. The frequency of liver IL-17+ T cells on liver inflammatory cells and their proportion in the total CD4+ T cell population increased markedly in the ACLF group, while the frquency of Foxp3+ T cells and their proportion in the total CD4+ T cell population did not show a significant difference in the two HBV infection groups. In addition, the ACLF group showed a dramatically higher IL-17+ /Foxp3+ ratio than the CLF group. CD4+ T cells increased significantly in the liver of patients with ACLF, compared with those in the liver of patients with CLF.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that intrahepatic IL-17+ T cells play an important role in the development of chronic HBV and that the imbalance between IL-17+ and Foxp3+ T cells in the liver may lead to progression of the disease but the mechanism should be further explored.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Niu et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.