Ratio of CD147high/CD147low in CD4+CD25+ T cells: A potential biomarker for early diagnosis and prediction of response to therapy for autoimmune diseases

Regulatory T cell (Treg cell) is an important immunosuppressive T cell subset and plays a dominant role in maintaining the immune balance in vivo. The function defects in Treg cells have been involved in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases. The detection of Treg cell suppressive function is important for early diagnosis and prediction of response to treatment for autoimmune diseases. The traditional detection of Treg cell suppressive function needs at least 20 mL peripheral blood sample of patients and the results would be got in sixth day, therefore, it could not be widely applied in clinical. However, to find fast and simple detection method is very important. CD147 is a transmembrane protein and its expression is related to Treg cell suppressive function. Recent research has shown that the Treg cells with high CD147 expression have stronger suppressive function than which with low CD147 expression. In this work, we detected the ratio of CD147high/CD147low in CD4+CD25+ T cells in patients with active AS using fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). The results show the ratio of CD147high/CD147low decreased obviously in patients with active AS compared with healthy controls, which reflects the suppressive function deficit of Treg cell. In the same time, the detection of the ratio of CD147high/CD147low needs only 150 μL peripheral blood sample and the result would be got in 4 h. We therefore hypothesize that the ratio of CD147high/CD147low is a good indicator for the Treg cell function, and it is especially suitable for early diagnosis and prediction of response to therapy targeted recovering Treg cell function in autoimmune diseases.