Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol. 2010 Jan-Mar;23(1):25-34. doi: 10.1177/039463201002300103.
It is commonly accepted from gene expression studies that the CB2 receptor is expressed by most cell types of the rodent and human immune system. However, the exact identity of cells expressing CB2 receptor protein in human blood or the abundance of receptors expressed by each immune subset is not well characterised. We conducted a detailed analysis of CB2 protein levels expressed by blood-derived immune cells from healthy human donors. Flow-cytometry was conducted using 4 commercially available anti-CB2 polyclonal antibodies in conjunction with a selection of immune cell specific markers. Across multiple healthy subjects we observed that NK cells, B-lymphocytes and monocytes expressed a higher level of CB2 receptor than CD4+ or CD8+ T-lymphocytes. Neutrophils also expressed a low level of CB2 receptor. NK cells had the greatest variation in CB2 expression levels, whereas for each of the other cell types CB2 levels were relatively similar between subjects. In contrast to other methods, the high sensitivity of flow-cytometry revealed that CB2 receptors are present on resting T-lymphocytes at low abundance in some healthy subjects. These data provide the first detailed analysis of CB2 protein levels in blood leukocyte subsets from healthy donors and identifies the cell types which could be targeted with CB-mimetic drugs in humans.
从基因表达研究中普遍认为，CB2 受体存在于啮齿动物和人类免疫系统的大多数细胞类型中。然而，在人类血液中表达 CB2 受体蛋白的细胞的确切身份或每个免疫亚群表达的受体丰度尚不清楚。我们对来自健康人类供体的血液来源免疫细胞表达的 CB2 蛋白水平进行了详细分析。流式细胞术使用 4 种市售的抗 CB2 多克隆抗体与一系列免疫细胞特异性标志物结合进行。在多个健康受试者中，我们观察到 NK 细胞、B 淋巴细胞和单核细胞表达的 CB2 受体水平高于 CD4+或 CD8+T 淋巴细胞。中性粒细胞也表达低水平的 CB2 受体。NK 细胞的 CB2 表达水平变化最大，而对于其他细胞类型，每个受试者之间的 CB2 水平相对相似。与其他方法相比，流式细胞术的高灵敏度显示，在一些健康受试者中，CB2 受体以低丰度存在于静止的 T 淋巴细胞上。这些数据提供了健康供体血液白细胞亚群中 CB2 蛋白水平的首次详细分析，并确定了在人类中可以用 CB 类似物药物靶向的细胞类型。
