Skewed Lymphocyte Subpopulations and Associated Phenotypes in Patients with Mastocytosis

Mastocytosis is a clonal mast cell disorder associated with elevated mast cell mediators, which themselves have been reported to affect lymphocyte function. However, the impact of an expanded mast cell compartment on lymphocyte subpopulations, and their correlation with clinical phenotypes in patients with indolent systemic mastocytosis (ISM), has not been explored.

To examine the immunophenotype of circulating lymphocytes in patients with ISM compared with healthy adult controls and examine relationships with aspects of clinical disease.

We examined lymphocyte subsets in 20 adult patients with ISM and 40 healthy adult volunteers by multiparameter flow cytometry. Results were correlated with clinical characteristics.

Patients with ISM exhibited a significantly lower median frequency and absolute cell count of both circulating CD8⁺ T cells and natural killer cells accompanying a significantly increased ratio of CD4⁺/CD8⁺ T cells when compared with healthy volunteers. Stratification of our ISM patient cohort according to clinical manifestations revealed that CD19⁺CD21^lowCD38^low B cells were significantly higher in patients with a history of autoimmune disease and counts of terminally differentiated CD4⁺ T cells were significantly higher in patients with osteoporosis or osteopenia.

Several circulating lymphocyte subpopulations in patients with ISM were significantly different when compared with healthy controls; in specific lymphocyte subsets, this lymphocyte skewing correlated with clinical observations including osteoporosis and autoimmune disease. These data suggest the need for further studies on abnormalities in lymphocyte subsets and the attendant clinical consequences in both mast cell proliferative and activation disorders.