CD3CD4gp130 T Cells Are Associated With Worse Disease Activity in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients.

The receptors for IL-35, IL-12Rβ2 and gp130, have been implicated in the inflammatory pathophysiology of autoimmune diseases. In this study, we set out to investigate the serum IL-35 levels and the surface levels of IL-12Rβ2 and gp130 in CD3CD4, CD3CD4 and CD3CD4 lymphocyte subpopulations in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients (n=50) versus healthy controls (n=50). The potential T cell subsets associated with gp130 transcript () expression in CD4 T cells of SLE patients was also examined in publicly-available gene expression profiling (GEP) datasets. Here, we report that serum IL-35 levels were significantly higher in SLE patients than healthy controls (=0.038) but it was not associated with SLEDAI-2K scores. The proportions of IL-12Rβ2 and gp130 cells in SLE patients did not differ significantly with those of healthy controls in all lymphocyte subpopulations investigated. Essentially, higher SLEDAI-2K scores were positively correlated with increased proportion of gp130 cells, but not IL-12Rβ2 cells, on CD3CD4 T cells (r=0.425, =0.002, =0.016). Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) of a GEP dataset of CD4 T cells isolated from SLE patients (n=8; GSE4588) showed that expression was positively associated with genes upregulated in CD4 T cells vs myeloid or B cells (<0.001). In an independent GEP dataset of CD4 T cells isolated from SLE patients (n=9; GSE1057), expression was induced upon anti-CD3 stimulation, and that Treg, T and CCR7 T cells gene sets were significantly enriched (<0.05) by genes highly correlated with expression (n=92 genes; r>0.75 with expression) upon anti-CD3 stimulation in these SLE patients. In conclusion, gp130 signaling in CD3CD4 T cell subsets may contribute to increased disease activity in SLE patients, and it represents a promising therapeutic target for inhibition in the disease.