Chemokine receptor 8 expression may be linked to disease severity and elevated interleukin 6 secretion in acute pancreatitis

Figure 1 Flow diagram of patient recruitment. From the 40 patients and 6 healthy controls recruited over the study period, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, whole blood and plasma were used for the various study assays as shown. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 13 patients with Day 3 data were used to do a screening study of innate and adaptive immune cell genes using RT² Profiler Array (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). CCR8 was selected as a target gene and further verification studies done in 29 patients as depicted. For immunophenotyping, 12 antibodies were selected to discriminate monocytes, lymphocytes, and granulocytes and their subpopulations from blood samples of seven patients. An exploratory study of seven Th1/Th2/Th17 cytokines was done on 31 patient samples and 23 of these randomly selected for further analysis using the MILLIPLEX^® assay. PBMCs: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells; RT²: Reverse transcriptase square; D: Day; MAP: Mild acute pancreatitis; MSAP: Moderately severe acute pancreatitis; SAP: Severe acute pancreatitis; CCR8: Chemokine receptor 8; Th1/Th2/Th17: T helper type 1/2/17.