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Articles

Expression of BTK/p-BTK is different between CD5+ and CD5- B lymphocytes from Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia/Evans syndromes

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ABSTRACT

Objective: To explore the activity of B subsets from Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia/Evans syndrome (AIHA/ES) patients.

Methods: The expression of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) and phosphorylated BTK (p-BTK) on CD5+CD19+B and CD5-CD19+B lymphocytes were detected using flow cytometry in AIHA/ES patients with different disease states, healthy controls (HCs) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients. The correlations of expressed BTK and p-BTK with clinical variables were analyzed.

Results: Thirty six AIHA/ES patients (16 hemolytic, 20 remission), 11 CLL patients, and 15 HCs were enrolled. The expression levels of BTK and p-BTK on CD5+B lymphocytes in AIHA/ES patients were higher than those in HCs and CLL patients. The latter two groups had no significant difference, and were positively correlated with the quantity of IgE. The ratio of p-BTK to BTK on CD5+B lymphocytes of the hemolytic and remission groups was obviously higher than that on CD5-B lymphocytes (74.62 ± 6.42% and 29.63 ± 10.19%, respectively; P = 0.001 versus 77.95 ± 9.57% and 26.29 ± 6.86%, respectively; P = 0.006). The ratio of p-BTK to BTK on CD5+B lymphocytes (54.89 ± 9.56%) and CD5-B lymphocytes (30.86 ± 12.47%) did not differ significantly in HCs (P = 0.109). BTK did not differ significantly between CD5+ and CD5-B lymphocytes in AIHA/ES, but p-BTK on CD5+B lymphocytes was significantly higher than that on CD5-B lymphocytes in AIHA/ES patients.

Conclusions: CD5+B lymphocytes are the major B subtype that is activated in AIHA/ES patients and it positively correlates with IgE.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 81700118].