Kotetsu Yasuaki, Yanagihara Toyoshi, Suzuki Kunihiro, Ando Hiroyuki, Eto Daisuke, Hata Kentaro, Arimura-Omori Masako, Yamamoto Yuzo, Harada Eiji, Hamada Naoki
Research Institute for Diseases of the Chest, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan.
Department of Respiratory Medicine, Hamanomachi Hospital, Fukuoka 810-8539, Japan.
Biomedicines. 2021 Sep 16;9(9):1231. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines9091231.
Sarcoidosis is a systemic, granulomatous disease caused by unknown immunological abnormalities. The organs most vulnerable to sarcoidosis are the lungs. Patients often resolve spontaneously, but the lungs can also be severely affected. Although details regarding prognostic factors in sarcoidosis patients with lung involvement remain unclear, several reports have suggested that immune checkpoint molecules are involved in the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis. In this study, we divided sarcoidosis patients into two groups based on chest computed tomography (CT) findings and compared immune checkpoint molecules expressed on T cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) in the two groups, using flow cytometry. We found elevated programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) or T cell immunoglobulin- and mucin-domain-containing molecule-3 (TIM-3) expression on T cells in BALF in patients with spontaneous improvement in CT findings, compared with those in patients without improvement in CT findings. In conclusion, our study implies that PD-1 or TIM-3 expression on T cells in BALF may be a prognostic factor for pulmonary lesions in sarcoidosis.
结节病是一种由未知免疫异常引起的全身性肉芽肿性疾病。最易受结节病影响的器官是肺。患者常可自发缓解,但肺部也可能受到严重影响。尽管关于肺部受累的结节病患者预后因素的细节仍不清楚,但有几份报告表明免疫检查点分子参与了结节病的发病机制。在本研究中,我们根据胸部计算机断层扫描(CT)结果将结节病患者分为两组,并使用流式细胞术比较两组支气管肺泡灌洗液(BALF)中T细胞上表达的免疫检查点分子。我们发现,与CT结果无改善的患者相比,CT结果自发改善的患者BALF中T细胞上程序性细胞死亡1(PD-1)或含T细胞免疫球蛋白和粘蛋白结构域分子3(TIM-3)的表达升高。总之,我们的研究表明,BALF中T细胞上PD-1或TIM-3的表达可能是结节病肺部病变的一个预后因素。