Lee Ji Yeon, Seo Eun-Hye, Oh Chung-Sik, Paik Jin-Hee, Hwang Dae-Yong, Lee Seung Hyun, Kim Seong-Hyop
Department of Microbiology, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Department of Anesthesiology and Pain medicine, Konkuk University Medical Center, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
J Cancer. 2017 May 10;8(7):1249-1254. doi: 10.7150/jca.18230. eCollection 2017.
We hypothesised that the blood levels of immune cells would be related to the progression of colorectal cancer and regional lymph node metastasis. We investigated the association between the blood levels of immune cells and regional lymph node metastasis in colorectal cancer patients. Patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stages 1 and 2 colorectal cancer were assigned to Early stage group and those with AJCC stages 3 and 4 were assigned to Late stage group. Blood levels of circulating immune cells, such as cluster of differentiation (CD)4 including T helper 1 (Th1) and 17 (Th17) cells, regulatory T (Treg) cells, CD8 T cells, and natural killer (NK) cells were assessed using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). The blood levels of CD4 T, Treg, CD8 T, and NK cells did not significantly differ between the two groups. However, the blood levels of Th1 and Th17 cells did significantly differ between the groups. Specifically, Late stage group had higher levels of Th1 and Th17 cells than Early stage group (Th1, 11.14±1.22% vs. 16.25±1.57%, = 0.015; Th17, 3.32±0.05% vs. 1.11±0.15%, < 0.01). In conclusion, the blood levels of Th1 and Th17 cells significantly increased as the N stage increased. The blood levels of Th1 and Th17 cells might be useful as predictive markers of lymph node invasion in colorectal cancer.
我们假设免疫细胞的血液水平与结直肠癌的进展及区域淋巴结转移有关。我们调查了结直肠癌患者免疫细胞血液水平与区域淋巴结转移之间的关联。美国癌症联合委员会（AJCC）1期和2期结直肠癌患者被分配到早期组，AJCC 3期和4期患者被分配到晚期组。使用荧光激活细胞分选（FACS）评估循环免疫细胞的血液水平，如包括辅助性T细胞1（Th1）和辅助性T细胞17（Th17）细胞在内的分化簇（CD）4、调节性T（Treg）细胞、CD8 T细胞和自然杀伤（NK）细胞。两组之间CD4 T细胞、Treg细胞、CD8 T细胞和NK细胞的血液水平无显著差异。然而，两组之间Th1和Th17细胞的血液水平存在显著差异。具体而言，晚期组的Th1和Th17细胞水平高于早期组（Th1，11.14±1.22%对16.25±1.57%，P = 0.015；Th17，3.32±0.05%对1.11±0.15%，P < 0.01）。总之，随着N分期增加，Th1和Th17细胞的血液水平显著升高。Th1和Th17细胞的血液水平可能作为结直肠癌淋巴结侵犯的预测标志物。
