Imbalance between Subpopulations of Regulatory T Cells in Patients with Acute Exacerbation of COPD

Figures & data

Table 1. Baseline characteristics of all subjects.

		Patients with AECOPD (n = 30)^a
	Healthy controls (n = 30)	Exacerbated state	Stable state
Age (years)	63.4 ± 7.9	65.7 ± 6.3
Male/female	24/6	25/5
Current/ex‐smokers	0/0	18/22
Smoking history (pack-years)	0	23.8 ± 3.7
FEV^1 (% predicted)	93.6 ± 3.7	50.0 ± 5.2^*	57.9 ± 6.5^*
FEV^1/FVC (%)	78.2 ± 3.0	55.1 ± 9.2^*	60.3 ± 2.5^*
FVC (L)	2.9 ± 0.3	1.1 ± 0.1^*	1.3 ± 0.4^*^,^**
RV/TLC	26.6 ± 3.8	43.2 ± 9.3^*	36.0 ± 7.7^*
RV (% predicted)	87.6 ± 5.5	117.0 ± 6.1^*	113.4 ± 7.1^*
DLCO (% predicted)	87.4 ± 3.3	61.2 ± 7.5^*	67.3 ± 8.5^*
BMI (kg/m^2)	27.7 ± 1.7	24.8 ± 2.6	25.4 ± 2.4^*

Data are presented as the median (IQR) for smoking history and the mean ± SD for all others.

AECOPD, acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; FEV¹, forced expiratory volume in 1 second; FVC, forced vital capacity; RV, residual volume; TLC, total lung capacity; DLCO, diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide of the lung; BMI, body mass index.

^a The COPD patients were the same in stable and exacerbated states.

^* p < 0.05 versus healthy controls.

^** p < 0.05 between before and after acute exacerbations.

Figure 1. Laboratory data for patients with AECOPD and healthy controls. Results are expressed as the (mean ± SD). n = 30; ^*p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.001.

Figure 2. Flow cytometry analysis of Treg cell subpopulations in patients with AECOPD. (A) Flow cytometry analysis of CD62L expression in CD4⁺CD25⁺ Treg cells. (B) The percentages of each circulating T-regulatory subset among CD4⁺ T cells in patients with AECOPD, SCOPD, and healthy controls. The results are expressed as the (mean ± SD). n = 30; ^*p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.001.

Figure 3. Correlations between suppressive phenotypes of circulating Tregs in AECOPD patients and systemic inflammatory media. (A) TNF-alpha and the frequency of CD4⁺CD25⁺CD62L⁺ Treg cells. There was a correlation between TNF-alpha and PO₂. (B) TNF-alpha and PaO₂ in AECOPD patients. There was a correlation between TNF-alpha and CD62. Data were determined by Spearman's rank correlation coefficients.