Objective: To investigate the association of the ratio of regulatory and effector T cells with recurrence and chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT).
Methods: Thirty patients with hematological malignancies who underwent allo-HSCT were classified as recurrence with cGVHD (n=4), non-recurrence with cGVHD (n=14), recurrence without cGVHD (n=5) and non-recurrence without cGVHD (n=7). The different percentage of CD4⁺CD25⁻CD69⁺ regulatory T cells in bone marrow and CD4⁺CD25⁺FoxP3⁺ regulatory T cells, Th1 cells and Th17 cells in peripheral blood were analyzed by flow cytometry.
Results: There were no significant differences in all these T-cell subsets among different groups (P>0.05). While the ratio of CD4⁺CD25⁻CD69⁺ regulatory T cells and Th1 cells (0.211±0.177) in 9 recurrence patients was significant higher than that (0.133±0.160) in 21 non-recurrence patients (P=0.033). The ratio were also significance between recurrence without cGVHD and non-recurrence without cGVHD patients (0.167±0.073 vs 0.073±0.057, P=0.048), and between recurrence with cGVHD and non-recurrence without cGVHD patients (0.218±0.113 vs 0.073±0.057, P=0.024). Furthermore, the ratio of CD4⁺CD25⁺FoxP3⁺ regulatory T cells and Th17 cells was significant lower (1.975±2.045) in 18 cGVHD patients than that of 12 without cGVHD patients (3.198±1.132, P=0.010), and the ratio was also significant lower in non-recurrence patients with cGVHD (1.695±1.178) than that of without cGVHD (3.446±1.376, P=0.028).
Conclusion: Our results show that the ratio of CD4⁺CD25⁻CD69⁺ regulatory T cells and Th1 cells raise in recurrence patients, and the ratio of CD4⁺CD25⁺FoxP3⁺ regulatory T cells and Th17 decrease in cGVHD patients, which suggest that the ratio of regulatory and effector T cells had association with recurrence and cGVHD in patients with allo-HSCT.