Decreased level of recent thymic emigrants in CD4+ and CD8+T cells from CML patients | Li et al. Journal of Translational Medicine 2010 8 47 http content 8 1 47 RESEARCH JOURNAL OF TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE Open Access Decreased level of recent thymic emigrants in CD4 and CD8 T cells from CML patients Yangqiu Li 1 2 Suxia Geng1 3 Qingsong Yin1 Shaohua Chen1 Lijian Yang1 Xiuli Wu1 Bo Li1 Xin Du3 Christian A Schmidt4 and Grzegorz K Przybylski 4 5 Abstract Background T-cell immunodeficiency is a common feature in cancer patients which may relate to initiation and development of tumor. Based on our previous finding to further characterize the immune status T cell proliferative history was analyzed in CD4 and CD8 T cells from chronic myeloid leukemia CML patients. Methods Quantitative analysis of 0Rec- Ja signal joint T cell receptor excision circles sjTRECs was performed in PBMCs CD3 CD4 and CD8 T cells by real-time PCR and the analysis of 23 TRBV-D1 sjTRECs was performed by seminested PCR. Forty eight CML cases in chronic phase CML-CP were selected for this study and 17 healthy individuals served as controls. Results The levels of 0Rec- Ja sjTRECs in PBMCs CD3 CD4 and CD8 T cells were significantly decreased in CML patients compared with control groups. Moreover the numbers of detectable TRBV subfamily sjTRECs as well as the frequency of particular TRBV-BD1 sjTRECs in patients with CML were significantly lower than those from healthy individuals. Conclusions We observed decreased levels of recent thymic emigrants in CD4 and CD8 T cells that may underlay the persistent immunodeficiency in CML patients. Background Chronic myeloid leukemia CML with the incidence of 100 000 population represents 15 of newly diagnosed leukemia cases in adults in China. The prognosis in CML improved markedly after introduction of abl tyrosine kinase inhibitors Immatinib mesylate and its derivatives still a lot of CML patients die due to abl mutation related drug resistance and the blast crisis 1 . Therefore further studies are needed in order .
