Krasimirova E, Velikova T, Ivanova-Todorova E, Tumangelova-Yuzeir K, Kalinova D, Boyadzhieva V, Stoilov N, Yoneva T, Rashkov R, Kyurkchiev D. Treg/Th17 cell balance and phytohaemagglutinin activation of T lymphocytes in peripheral blood of systemic sclerosis patients. World J Exp Med 2017; 7(3): 84-96 [PMID: 28890870 DOI: 10.5493/wjem.v7.i3.84]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Dobroslav Kyurkchiev, MD, PhD, DSc, Associate Professor, Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital “St. Ivan Rilski”, Department of Clinical Laboratory and Clinical Immunology, Medical University of Sofia, Ivan Geshov Str. 15, 1431 Sofia, Bulgaria. dkyurkchiev@medfac.mu-sofia.bg
Research Domain of This Article
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Article-Type of This Article
Basic Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Ekaterina Krasimirova, Tsvetelina Velikova, Ekaterina Ivanova-Todorova, Kalina Tumangelova-Yuzeir, Dobroslav Kyurkchiev, Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital “St. Ivan Rilski”, Department of Clinical Laboratory and Clinical Immunology, Medical University of Sofia, 1431 Sofia, Bulgaria
Desislava Kalinova, Vladimira Boyadzhieva, Nikolay Stoilov, Tsvetelina Yoneva, Rasho Rashkov, Clinic of Rheumatology, University Hospital “St. Ivan Rilski”, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Sofia, 1431 Sofia, Bulgaria
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to this work; Krasimirova E, Velikova T, Ivanova-Todorova E, Tumangelova-Yuzeir K and Kyurkchiev D performed the research; Kalinova D, Boyadzhieva V, Stoilov N, Yoneva T and Rashkov R contributed patient assessment and clinical materials; Krasimirova E and Velikova T analysed the data; Krasimirova E, Ivanova-Todorova E and Kyurkchiev D wrote the paper; Kyurkchiev D approved the final version of the article to be published.
Institutional review board statement: All peripheral blood samples were taken from patients and healthy control subjects after informed written consent and ethical permission was obtained for participation in this study. The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of University Hospital Saint Ivan Rilski, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dobroslav Kyurkchiev, MD, PhD, DSc, Associate Professor, Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital “St. Ivan Rilski”, Department of Clinical Laboratory and Clinical Immunology, Medical University of Sofia, Ivan Geshov Str. 15, 1431 Sofia, Bulgaria. dkyurkchiev@medfac.mu-sofia.bg
Telephone: +359-2-8524957
Received: January 26, 2017 Peer-review started: February 8, 2017 First decision: May 10, 2017 Revised: May 26, 2017 Accepted: June 30, 2017 Article in press: July 3, 2017 Published online: August 20, 2017 Processing time: 203 Days and 10.8 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a devastating autoimmune disorder, which can be subclassified into limited cutaneous SSc (lcSSc) and diffuse cutaneous SSc (dcSSc) based on the skin manifestations. One of the original contributions of our study has demonstrated a decreased capacity for PHA-induced peripheral T-cell activation in patients with SSc. For the first time, our research group has identified an up-regulated percentage of CD4+CD25-FoxP3+ cells in the dcSSc subset. Regarding the peripheral cytokine profile in SSc, the serum levels of interleukin (IL)-17A have been increased in lcSSc as opposed to the dcSSc subset. The rest of our data, concerning the elevated circulating IL-6, IL-10, and TGF-β in SSc patients, has confirmed literature-based results.
