Quantitative Analysis of Innate Lymphoid Cells in Patients with ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction

ABSTRACT

Background

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the principal causes of death in Mexico and worldwide. AMI triggers an acute inflammatory process that induces the activation of different populations of the innate immune system. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are an innate immunity, highly pleiotropic population, which have been observed to participate in tissue repair and polarization of the adaptive immune response.

Objective

We aimed to analyze the levels of subsets of ILCs in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), immediately 3 and 6 months post-AMI, and analyze their correlation with clinical parameters.

Results

We evaluated 29 STEMI patients and 15 healthy controls and analyzed the different subsets of circulating ILCs, immediately 3 and 6 months post-AMI. We observed higher levels of circulating ILCs in STEMI patients compared to control subjects and a significant correlation between ILC levels and cardiac function. We also found increased production of the cytokines interleukin 5 (IL-5) and interleukin 17A (IL-17A), produced by ILC2 cells and by ILC3 cells, respectively, in the STEMI patients.

Conclusion

This study shows new evidence of the role of ILCs in the pathophysiology of AMI and their possible involvement in the maintenance of cardiac function.

KEYWORDS:

• Acute myocardial infarction
• cardiac remodeling
• cytokines
• innate lymphoid cells
• natural killer cells

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Aaron Trujillo, Cardiology Department of Hospital Central “Ignacio Morones Prieto” for the recruitment of patients, and Dr. Carlos David Escobedo-Uribe for his invaluable help in the echocardiographic evaluation of AMI patients.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because it needed a data-sharing agreement that provides for (1) a commitment to use the data only for research purposes and not to identify any individual participant; (2) a commitment to secure the data using appropriate computer technology; and (3) a commitment to destroy or return the data after analyses are completed.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08820139.2024.2316052.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the grant [CB-2012- 01 CONACYT No.180094], México (to AM-U).