T_H17 cells are increased in the peripheral blood of patients with SAPHO syndrome

Abstract

To assess whether the immune derangement previously observed in SAPHO syndrome could be linked to variations in blood T_H1, T_H2 or T_H17 lymphocytes frequency. Seven SAPHO patients with a protracted course of the disease were studied ex-vivo for intracellular cytokines production by means of flow-cytometry and compared with matched groups of Psoriatic Arthritis patients and healthy controls. The Kruskal–Wallis test on the median of the three categories showed that there is a significant association between the T_H17 levels and the category (p value = 0.02474). The mean and variance for the proportion of IL-17 producing CD4+ cells were compared between groups showing significant differences between SAPHO versus PsA subgroup (p = 0.05) and SAPHO versus healthy controls (p = 0.008). Interestingly, activation of T_H17 axis, but not of T_H1 and T_H2, has been found, and can be observed both in patients with different activity of the disease or treated with different drugs. The T_H17 increase in peripheral blood of our SAPHO subjects resembles the one recently found in patients with different AIDs. Novel therapeutic options in these patients may therefore include IL-17 blockade.

• Autoinflammatory
• CRMO
• inflammation
• interleukin-1β
• osteitis
• T_H17

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mr. Barry Mark Wheaton for his linguistic assistance. The funding source had no role in study design, data handling, manuscript writing and publication.