Dynamics of Follicular Helper T Cells Subsets in RheumatoidArthritis Patients Before and After Treatment

PAOLA VIRGINIA FERRERO ; LUISINA ONOFRIO; CRISTINA DEL VALLE ACOSTA ; ESTEFANIA RAQUEL ZACCA; NICOLASERIC PONCE; EDUARDO MUSSANO ; IGNACIO ISAAC CADILE; LAURA ONETTI ; MARINA WERNER ; ALICIA BEATRIZ COSTANTINO ; EVA VIRGINIA ACOSTA RODRIGUEZ ; ADRIANA GRUPPI

Congreso; Meeting: ACR Convergence 2020; 2020

Background/Purpose: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic infammatory disease characterized bythe production of autoantibodies like rheumatoid factor and anti- citrullinated protein. CD4+ folicular helper T cells (Tfh) play a critical role in immunity by supporting several events involved in antibody(Ab) production by B cells, including class-switch recombination, germinal center B cell diferentiation, and afnity maturation. Remarkably, high levels of Tfh are associated with humoralautoimmunity. We aimed to evaluate the frequency of Tfh in RA patients under diferent treatment conditions and to characterize the Tfh according their ability to produce Interleukin (IL)-17 and Interferon (IFN)-γ, cytokines with opposite roles in Ab production.Methods: One hundred subjects over 18 years diagnosed with RA according to ACR/EULAR 2010criteria untreated and under diferent treatments were recruited. Twenty-seven of these patients were re-evaluated after 3 months of treatment and treatment response was determined according toEULAR response criteria. Forty-six healthy donors (HD) sex- and age-matched were recruited ascontrols (table 1). Ex-vivo Tfh frequency was analyzed by flow cytometry (Figure 1a). Cryopreservedperipheral blood mononuclear cells were used to determine the frequency of IL-17- and IFN-γ-producing Tfh. GraphPad Prism version 7.00 software was used for statistical analysis and p values