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[Telomerase activity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in patients with acquired immune dysfunction]
1Department of Infectious Diseases, The Affiliated Xiangya Hospital of Hunan Medical University, Changsha 410008, China.
Objective:
To investigate telomerase activity of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in patients with acquired immune dysfunction.
Methods:
Telomerase activity of peripheral PBMC isolated from 4 groups including healthy subjects (17), chronic hepatitis B patients (14), diabetic patients (8) and chronic renal failure patients (8) was assayed with PCR-ELISA.
Results:
(1) Telomerase activity was detectable at low levels in resting PBMC of all the 4 groups. It increased obviously after in vitro phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation; (2) Telomerase activity of the resting PBMC in chronic hepatitis B patients was significantly lower than that in normal subjects, and was upregulated to the same level in the both groups after PHA stimulation; (3) No effect of recombinant human interleukin-12 on telomerase activity of activated T lymphocytes was found.
Conclusions:
PBMC may express telomerase activity and the decreased telomerase activity of PBMC in patients with chronic hepatitis B may partially be responsible for immune dysfunction in these patients.