Immune suppression plays critical roles in the development of chronic osteomyelitis, and the mechanisms underlying the development of immune suppression in chronic osteomyelitis have attracted much attention. LAG-3 is an important suppressor of T cell activation, but the role of LAG-3 in the immune regulation of chronic osteomyelitis is currently unknown. We sought to demonstrate if LAG-3 plays crucial roles in chronic osteomyelitis progression and has effects on immune suppression and exhausting of T cells, and what is the mechanism underlying LAG-3 deregulation in chronic osteomyelitis. We examined the expression of LAG-3 in the T cells of peripheral blood of 50 healthy controls and 50 patients with chronic osteomyelitis by flow cytometry. Clinical data were analyzed to determine the correlation between inflammation index and LAG-3 expression. Moreover, we isolated the CD4+ T cells from healthy controls and chronic osteomyelitis patients to compare cell proliferation and IFN-γ production. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays were utilized to analyze the epigenetic modification on LAG-3 expression in T cells. We found that LAG-3 was significantly increased in the T cells of peripheral blood from chronic osteomyelitis patients. Subsequently, clinical data analysis suggested that the higher expression of LAG-3 was associated with severer inflammation situation. Consistently, LAG-3+CD4+ T cells exhibited impaired cell proliferation and IFN-γ secretion. Deregulation of histone methylation mediated the increase of LAG-3+ T cells during chronic osteomyelitis. Taken together, our study demonstrates the increase of LAG-3+ T cells and its immune regulatory roles in chronic osteomyelitis progression, suggesting new mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets for chronic osteomyelitis.
Keywords: LAG-3; T cells; chronic osteomyelitis; epigenetic modification.