Elevated levels of Th17 cells in children with central obesity

Abstract

Background. It is believed that the recently discovered interleukin 17-producing Th17 cells play a role in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammation in the course of obesity and diabetes. Objectives. The purpose of our study was to complete data on this subject in children. Methods. We assessed Th17 cell levels in the peripheral blood of children diagnosed with central obesity (n = 14) and compared the results with data obtained in patients with newly diagnosed (n = 11) and long-term type 1 diabetes mellitus (n = 18), and in a control group as well (n = 24). Results. (i) Children with central obesity were characterized by higher percentages of Th17 cells as compared to children from the control group; (ii) in the peripheral blood of patients with long-term type 1 diabetes the Th17 cell counts were higher compared to the control group; (iii) total plasma cholesterol concentration correlated positively with Th17/Treg cells ratio; and (iv) among patients with long-term diabetes, disease duration correlated positively with Th17 cell count and Th17/Th1 cell ratio. Conclusion. The results of our study indicate that Th17 cells may be involved in chronic inflammation accompanying obesity and type 1 diabetes mellitus in children.

Key Words::

• Diabetes immunity
• inflammation
• Th1 cells
• regulatory T cells

Authors’ contributions

WŁ, KG and MM made substantial contribution to conception and design of project, also analyzed and interpreted the data, BGO and AB participated in data collection and drafting/revising the manuscript. All authors were involved in writing the paper and gave final approval of submitted manuscript.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Malgorzata Rusak and Prof. Milena Dabrowska for helping with flow cytometry analyses.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary data and Table I available online at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00365513.2015.1066845.