Dynamics of follicular helper T cell subsets in RA patients before and after treatment.

ACOSTA C; MUSSANO E; WERNER M; GRUPPI A; ONOFRIO L; PONCE NE; ONETTI L; ACOSTA RODRIGUEZ EV; FERRERO P; ZACCA E; CADILE I; CONSTANTINO A

Congreso; ACR 2020 Annual Meeting ? American College of Rheumatology.; 2020

American College of Rheumatology

Background/Purpose: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by the production of autoantibodies like Rheumatoid Factor and Anti-cyclic citrullinated peptides. CD4+ follicular 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 differentiation, and affinity maturation. Remarkably, high levels of Tfh are associated with humoral autoimmunity. We aimed to evaluate the frequency of Tfh in RA patients presenting auto-Ab under different treatment conditions and to characterize the Tfh according their ability to produce IL-17 and IFN-γ, cytokines with opposite roles in Ab production.Methods: One hundred subjects over 18 years diagnosed with RA according to ACR/EULAR 2010 criteria untreated and with different treatments were recruited. Twenty-seven of these patients were re-evaluated after 3 months of treatment and treatment response was determined according to EULAR response criteria . Forty-six healthy donors (HD) sex- and age-matched were recruited as controls (table 1). Ex-vivo Tfh cells frequency was analyzed by flow cytometry (Figure 1a). Cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cells were used to determine the frequency of IL-17- and IFN-γ-producing Tfh cells. GraphPad Prism version 7.00 software was used for statistic analysis and p values