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Flow cytometry analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes from patients with bullous pemphigoid
F Jouen-Beades1, P Joly, F Héron
1Groupe de Recherche en Immunopathologie, Institut Fédératif de Recherche Multidisciplinaire sur les Peptides, Rouen, France.
Background:
Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune disease observed in elderly subjects in which alteration of peripheral blood lymphocyte subset repartition has been described.
Objective:
To evaluate peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets from BP patients and identify immunologic changes that can be assigned either to the autoimmune disease or to the ageing process.
Methods:
Peripheral blood lymphocytes from 24 patients with BP and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy individuals were analyzed by flow cytometry and these results were compared to those obtained from young adults.
Results:
This study showed: (i) the presence of T-cell lymphopenia with a decreased number of CD8+ and gdgammadelta T lymphocytes in BP patients compared with younger adult controls; (ii) a high dispersion of the results in the BP population; (iii) the absence of a significant difference of lymphocyte subset levels between BP patients and age- and sex-matched controls.
Conclusion:
This flow cytometry study suggests that the modifications of lymphocyte subpopulation values observed in BP patients are related to immunologic changes induced by age in elderly people.