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The clinical trajectory of peripheral blood immune cell subsets, T-cell activation, and cytokines in septic patients

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Abstract

Objective and design

Changes in the immune status of patients with sepsis may have a major impact on their prognosis. Our research focused on changes in various immune cell subsets and T-cell activation during the progression of sepsis.

Methods and subjects

We collected data from 188 sepsis patients at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine. The main focus was on the patient’s immunocyte subset typing, T-cell activation/Treg cell analysis, and cytokine assay, which can indicate the immune status of the patient.

Results

The study found that the number of CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, NK cells, and B cells decreased early in the disease, and the decrease in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells was more pronounced in the death group. T lymphocyte activation was inhibited, and the number of Treg cells increased as the disease progressed. T lymphocyte inhibition was more significant in the death group, and the increase in IL-10 was more significant in the death group. Finally, we used patients’ baseline conditions and immunological detection indicators for modeling and found that IL-10, CD4+ Treg cells, CD3+HLA-DR+ T cells, and CD3+CD69+ T cells could predict patients’ prognosis well.

Conclusion

Our study found that immunosuppression occurs in patients early in sepsis. Early monitoring of the patient’s immune status may provide a timely warning of the disease.

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Data availability

The data supporting the results of this research are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province (2019C03076).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geriatric and Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310003, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Xuan Lu, Cong-Ying Song, Ping Wang, Li Li, Li-Ying Lin, Shuai Jiang, Jia-Ning Zhou, Meng-Xiao Feng, Yun-Mei Yang & Yuan-Qiang Lu

  2. Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Aging and Physic-Chemical Injury Diseases of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, 310003, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Xuan Lu, Cong-Ying Song, Ping Wang, Li Li, Li-Ying Lin, Shuai Jiang, Jia-Ning Zhou, Meng-Xiao Feng, Yun-Mei Yang & Yuan-Qiang Lu

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  1. Xuan Lu
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Contributions

Study conception and design: XL, C-YS, Y-QL; data collection: XL, PW, LL, L-YL, SJ, J-NZ; data analysis: XL, M-XF; drafting of the article: XL; critical revision: Y-MY, Y-QL. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuan-Qiang Lu.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethics approval

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (20230150). This study was in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements. The written informed consent was obtained by the patients/participants. The procedures were in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964.

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Responsible Editor: John Di Battista.

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Lu, X., Song, CY., Wang, P. et al. The clinical trajectory of peripheral blood immune cell subsets, T-cell activation, and cytokines in septic patients. Inflamm. Res. 73, 145–155 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00011-023-01825-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00011-023-01825-w

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