The Role Of Costimulatory Molecules In Patients With Bronchial Asthma

Bronchial asthma is an airway chronic inflammatory disease. It's characterized by airway hyperresponsiveness to specific and nonspecific stimuli and infiltration of series of inflammative cells in bronchial mucosa. The exact pathogensis of asthma are still unknown. At present, some studies indicated that immune response disorder might play an important role on pathogensis.It is generally accepted that normal immune response to extrinsic antigens depends on coordinating interaction between T cells and antigen presenting cells (APCs). Activation of naive T lymphocytes requires two direct signals. If second (costimulatory) signal is absent, T cells will lead to unresponsiveness (anergy), even cause apoptosis. If the second signal overstimulate, T lymphocyte cells may be over- activated and lead to immune disorder. Recently, lots of experiment in vivo or vitro have shown that several costimulatory molecules performanced important effect on different stages of T cell activation, differentiation, proliferation and several relative cytokine involved in the development of asthma. B7/CD28 CD40/CD40LCD137/CD137 OX40/OX40L are several primay costimulatory molecules in numerous immune responses, we have studied the expression of costimulatory molecules on T cells and changes of some cytokine in peripheral blood of patients with asthma. It is suggested that the results may help for management of asthma in near future.1 Significances of T lymphocyte and its subsets as well as the expression of costimulatory molecules with allergic asthmatic patientsT cell and its subsets (CD3, CD4, CDS, CD21, CD25, HLA-DR, CD4/CD8), costimulatory molecules (CD28, CD 137, CD40, CD40L, OX40, CD 152, CD80, CD86) in 50 patients with allergic asthma were analyzed by using immunopheotying and flow cytometry. The results demonstrated that the T cell and its subsets has no changes compared to that of normal controls in peripheral blood of attack asthma and stable asthma (p>0.05), but HLA-DR, the activated symbol of T cell was increased in all stage of asthma. It is obvious that there is T cell functional disorder existed in asthma. The expression of costimulatory molecule CD40, CD40L, CD 152, OX40 and CD28, CD4+CD28+, CD8+CD28+ have no remarkable changes, however the CD 137, CD86, CD80 on T cells and APCs from patients with allergic asthma were significantly upregulated compared to those of normal controls (P<0.01), We also found that CD 137 was higher than that of normal controls in stable asthma patients (p<0.05) and the abnormal expression of the costimulatory molecules CD86, CD80, CD 137 on the surface of T cells or APCs, it is suggested these data may be useful in evaluating effect of clinical management of asthma.2 The significiances of IL-2, it's receptor and IL-6 in asthmaThe plasma levels of cytokines (IL-2 , its souble receptor and IL-6) from patients with allergic asthma were measured. The results showed the plasma level of IL-2, IL-6 sIL-2R were remarekably increased than those of the normal controls in every stage of asthma . It was suggested that IL-2, sIL-2R, IL-6, might be a useful marker for evaluating the clinical severity of asthma, and play an important role in the development of asthma .It is concluded that the functional disorder of T cells and some cytokines such as IL-2, IL-6, sIL-2R as well as the abnormal expression of CD80, CD86, CD 137, HLA-DR on T cell or APCs may involve in process ing of asthma.