Standard and immunoproteasome expression in pediatric tonsillectomy patients
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Updated: Mar 21, 2026

Isolation of Tonsillar Mononuclear Cells to Study Ex Vivo Innate Immune Responses in a Human Mucosal Lymphoid Tissue
Published on: June 14, 2020
Massimiliano Bergallo1,2, Elisa Loiacono3,4, Stefano Gambarino3,4
1Department of Public Health and Pediatric Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy - massimiliano.bergallo@unito.it.
Background:
Pro-inflammatory cytokines including TNF-α and IFN-γ, play an important role during the recurrent tonsillitis illness and proteasome and immunoproteasome stimulation.
Methods:
mRNA expression analysis of proteasome and immunoproteasome subunits was performed by PBMC whole blood isolation from children tonsillectomy patients. Total RNA was extracted from PBMC and retro-transcribed in cDNA. A real-time PCR with TaqMan probe was then performed.
Results:
PBMC of children with tonsillectomy showed, a significantly increased expression of proteasome constitutive subunit β2 encoding (1.52±0.61 vs. 0.88±0.5, P<0.0001) compared to healthy controls (HC). The same results were observed for immunoproteasome inducible subunit LMP2 (2.55±1.95 vs. 0.73±0.49, P<0.001), LMP7 (1.94±1.18 vs. 0.79±0.41, P<0.001), MECL1 (1.97±1.20 vs. 0.79±0.41, P<0.001). No differences were observed for proteasome subunit β1. Conversely a significantly decreased expression of proteasome constitutive subunit β5 encoding mRNA (0.96±0.39 vs. 1.28±0.65, P=0.0291) was observed.
Conclusions:
In children with recurrent tonsillitis was observed an increased expression of β2, the corresponding iPS, β1i and β5i compared to healthy controls. Contrariwise β5 subunit mRNA expression was significantly decreased.

