Guo Hui, Xu Bingchuan, Yang Xige, Wang Ye, Liu Xiaobo, Cui Chengri, Jiang Yanfang
Key Laboratory of Zoonosis Research, Ministry of Education, the First Hospital of Jilin University , Changchun , China , and.
Immunol Invest. 2014;43(4):312-23. doi: 10.3109/08820139.2013.854377. Epub 2013 Dec 11.
Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) is a T cell-mediated autoimmune disease. However, little is known about the role of different subsets of natural killer (NK) and natural killer T (NKT) cells at the early stage of the HT process. A total of 45 euthyroid patients with new onset HT and 40 age/gender-matched healthy controls (HC) were examined for the frequency of different subsets of NK and NKT cells and their function by flow cytometry. In comparison with that in HC, significantly higher percentages of peripheral blood CD3-CD56+ NK, NKG2D+, NKp30+ NK and NKT cells, but significantly lower percentages of NKG2A+, KIR2DL3+ inhibitory NK and NKT cells were detected in the HT patients. Furthermore, the percentages of NKG2D+ NK cells were correlated positively with the concentrations of serum anti-thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb) in the HT patients. Moreover, the percentages of inducible IFN-γ and CD107a+ NK cells in the HT patients were significantly higher than those in HC. Our data suggest that activated NK cells may participate in the early pathogenic process of HT.
桥本甲状腺炎（HT）是一种T细胞介导的自身免疫性疾病。然而，关于自然杀伤（NK）细胞和自然杀伤T（NKT）细胞不同亚群在HT病程早期的作用，人们了解甚少。通过流式细胞术检测了45例新发HT的甲状腺功能正常患者和40例年龄/性别匹配的健康对照（HC）中NK和NKT细胞不同亚群的频率及其功能。与HC相比，HT患者外周血CD3-CD56+NK、NKG2D+、NKp30+NK和NKT细胞的百分比显著更高，但NKG2A+、KIR2DL3+抑制性NK和NKT细胞的百分比显著更低。此外，HT患者中NKG2D+NK细胞的百分比与血清抗甲状腺过氧化物酶抗体（TPOAb）浓度呈正相关。而且，HT患者中可诱导的IFN-γ和CD107a+NK细胞的百分比显著高于HC。我们的数据表明，活化的NK细胞可能参与了HT的早期致病过程。
