The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Original Article

Analysis of Circulating B-1 B Lymphocyte Subsets in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Su Jung Baik, Jisoo Lee, You-Hyun Lee

Copyright ⓒ 2006. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Sep 30, 2006

Abstract

Objectives

To define the abnormalities in homeostasis of B-1 B lymphocytes compartments in human SLE.

Methods

Perpheral blood was obtained from 7 patients with untreated active SLE patients and same patients at the time of incative disease after immunosuppressive therapy. The frequencies of CD5+CD45RAint B-1a B lymphocyte, and CD5+CD45RAlow B-1b B lymphocyte, CD5-CD45RAhigh conventional B-2 lymphocyte subsets were analyzed. For the control group, peripheral blood from 7 healthy adults and 7 patients with infectious fever were utilized.

Results

B-1a B lymphocyte subset was found at high frequency in active SLE patients compared to the fever control(33.5±15.0% vs 20.1±5.3%,p=0.01). In contrast, B-2 B lymphocyte subset was found at lower frequency compared to the fever control (65.6±15.1% vs 77.9±5.6%,p=0.04). No difference in frequency of B-1b B lymphocyte subsets was found between active SLE and the control. After immunosuppressive theray, B-1b B lymphocyte subset was markedly decreased with increase in B-2 B lymphocyte subset(p=0.05).

Conclusion

These results indicate that there are abnormalities in B cell conpartments with expansion of B-1a B lymphocyte subset and contraction of B-2 B lymphocyte subset associated with the disease activity in patients wite SLE.

Keywords: Systemic lupus erythematosus; B-Lymphocyte subsets