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Enhanced interaction of patients' lymphocytes with human dermal microvascular endothelial cell cultures in active
R Treudler1, C C Zouboulis, P Büttner
1Department of Dermatology, University Medical Center Benjamin Franklin, Free University of Berlin, Germany.
Background And Design:
To elucidate the role of lymphocyte/endothelial cell interactions in patients with Adamantiades-Behçet disease (ABD), we studied 16 patients of German and Turkish nationality (aged 18-57 years), all with active ABD, and 12 healthy volunteers (controls) of similar age and nationality. Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of patients were coincubated with human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HDMEC) and human keratinocytes (HK) in vitro; interactions of PBL with HDMEC and HK were investigated using an established fluorometric assay. Interactions of patients' PBL with HDMEC, HK, or both were the main outcome measures.
Results:
A significant increase of fluorescence with increasing PBL/HDMEC ratios was seen in patients and controls (P < .001); patients showed a significantly higher increase of fluorescence at higher PBL/HDMEC ratios (P < .05). The PBL/HK coincubation did not show significant alterations compared with the basal fluorescence signals of HK monolayers alone. Peripheral blood lymphocyte and HDMEC fluorescence values that were more than 2 SDs of controls (defined as positive result of assay) were found in a significantly higher number of patients with 2 or more active symptoms at the time of investigation (83%) compared with patients with only 1 active symptom (10%) (P = .008). Other clinical data did not correlate with the results of the PBL/HDMEC coincubation assay.
Conclusions:
Our results indicate enhanced in vitro interaction of PBL from patients with ABD with HDMEC, which was additionally shown to be a marker of the activity of the disease.