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Peripheral Lymphocyte Subsets as a Marker of Parkinson’s Disease in a Chinese Population

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Abstract

In this study, we conducted a clinical analysis of lymphocyte subtypes in 268 patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) to assess their clinical impact as a potential marker of advanced PD in Chinese patients. The participants comprised 268 sporadic PD patients and 268 healthy controls. The numbers of natural killer (NK) cells and CD3+, CD3+CD4+, CD3+CD8+, and CD19+ lymphocytes from peripheral blood were determined by immunostaining and flow cytometric analysis and the percentages of these CD+ T cells were calculated. The ratio of regulatory T (Treg)/helper T 17 (Th17) lymphocytes from 64 PD patients and 46 controls was determined by flow cytometric analysis. The results showed that the percentage of NK cells was higher in advanced PD patients than in controls (22.92% ± 10.08% versus 19.76% ± 10.09%, P = 0.006), while CD3+ T cells are decreased (62.93% ± 9.27% versus 65.75% ± 9.13%, P = 0.005). The percentage of CD19+ B cells in male patients was lower (P = 0.021) than in female patients, whereas NK cells were increased (P < 0.0001). The scores on the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and the Non-Motor Symptoms Scale in late-onset PD patients were significantly higher than those in early-onset patients (P = 0.024 and P = 0.007, respectively). The percentage of CD19+ B cells in patients with UPDRS scores >24 was lower than in those with scores <24 (10.17% ± 4.19% versus 12.22% ± 5.39%, P = 0.009). In addition, the Treg/Th17 ratio in female patients was higher than that in female controls (13.88 ± 6.32 versus 9.94 ± 4.06, P = 0.042). These results suggest that the percentages of NK cells, CD3+ T cells, and CD19+ B cells along with the Treg/Th17 ratio in peripheral blood may be used to predict the risk of PD in Chinese individuals and provide fresh avenues for novel diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic designs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC1306600), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81471292, U1603281, U1503222, 81430021), the Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (2015A030311021), a Technology Project of Guangzhou Municipality, China (201504281820463), and a Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (2016A050502025).

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Author notes

  1. Luan Cen, Shuxuan Huang and Miaomiao Zhou have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, 530021, China

    Luan Cen & Yousheng Xiao

  2. Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Luan Cen, Yousheng Xiao & Xiang Chen

  3. Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Chaohao Yang, Shuxuan Huang, Miaomiao Zhou, Xiaolu Tang, Wenyuan Guo, Zhuohua Wu, Mingshu Mo, Qinhui Huang & Pingyi Xu

  4. State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510120, China

    Kaiping Li, Qinhui Huang & Pingyi Xu

  5. Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University, Ürümqi, 830011, China

    Xinling Yang

  6. Department of Neurology, Guangzhou Chinese Medical Integrated Hospital (Huadu), Guangzhou, 510800, China

    Chaojun Chen

  7. Clinical Medicine Research Centre, Shunde Hospital of Southern Medical University, Foshan, 528300, China

    Shaogang Qu

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  1. Luan Cen
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  2. Chaohao Yang
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Correspondence to Chaojun Chen, Shaogang Qu or Pingyi Xu.

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Cen, L., Yang, C., Huang, S. et al. Peripheral Lymphocyte Subsets as a Marker of Parkinson’s Disease in a Chinese Population. Neurosci. Bull. 33, 493–500 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-017-0163-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-017-0163-9

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