Association of increased Treg and Th17 with pathogenesis of moyamoya disease

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 3071 - 8
• Main Authors: Weng, Leihua, Cao, Xiang, Han, Lijuan, Zhao, Haoran, Qiu, Shuwei, Yan, Yaping, Wang, Xiaoying, Chen, Xiangyan, Zheng, Weihong, Xu, Xin, Gao, Yuanyuan, Chen, Yan, Li, Jie, Yang, Yongbo, Xu, Yun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 08.06.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 13/21; 13/31; 631/250/127/1215; 692/617/375/1370/534; Adult; Aged; Biomarkers; Cytokines; Cytokines - metabolism; Female; Helper cells; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Immunomodulation; Immunophenotyping; Lymphocyte Count; Lymphocytes T; Male; Middle Aged; Moyamoya disease; Moyamoya Disease - diagnosis; Moyamoya Disease - etiology; Moyamoya Disease - metabolism; multidisciplinary; Pathogenesis; Phenotype; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Severity of Illness Index; T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory - immunology; T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory - metabolism; Th17 Cells - immunology; Th17 Cells - metabolism; Transforming Growth Factor beta - metabolism; Vascular endothelial growth factor; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A - blood; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A - metabolism
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-03278-8

Immuno-inflammation has been shown to play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of moyamoya disease (MMD). However, how did circulating Treg/Th17 cells involve in MMD patients remains unclear. 26 MMD, 21 atherothrombotic stroke, and 32 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. MMD patients have a significantly higher percentage of circulating Treg and Th17 cells as well as their dominantly secreting cytokines than other groups ( P  < 0.0001), whereas no difference was found in the ratio of Treg/Th17 between patients in MMD and atherothrombotic stroke group or control subjects ( P  = 0.244). However, the increased Treg in MMD patients which were enriched with FrIII Treg cells had deficient suppressive functions ( P  = 0.0017) compared to healthy volunteers. There was a positive correlation between Treg or TGF-β and MMD Suzuki’s stage. And the level of circulating Treg was as an independent factor associated with MMD stage. Besides, TGF-β was also correlated with the increased expression of VEGF in MMD patients. Our findings indicated an important involvement of circulating Treg in the pathogenic development of MMD and TGF-β in Treg induced VEGF.