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Thymic and Bone Marrow Output in Patients with Common Variable Immunodeficiency

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Journal of Clinical Immunology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

The study aims to obtain more information about the immune deficit of common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) patients.

Materials and Methods

A new real-time PCR assay was used to quantify T and B lymphocyte mobilization from the production and maturation sites through the detection of T cell receptor excision circles (TRECs) and kappa-deleting recombination circles (KRECs) and to allow the estimation of the average number of B cell divisions. T and B lymphocyte subsets were analyzed by flow cytometry.

Results

The number of TREC+ lymphocytes, which depends on age and gender, was significantly reduced in CVID patients. Similarly, KREC concentration was lower than in controls. Classification of patients according to the percentage of memory switched B cells showed that patients belonging to MB2 group and therefore with conserved B cell maturation have the lowest new B cell output but increased average peripheral divisions, leading to the highest B cell number.

Conclusions

TREC and KREC quantification can be helpful for a more complete and informative understanding of a heterogeneous disease such as CVID.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from “Programma Nazionale di Ricerca sull’AIDS”—ISS and by “Progetto Sangue”—Regione Lombardia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Science and Biotechnology, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Federico Serana

  2. Laboratorio di Biotecnologie, Diagnostics Department, Spedali Civili di Brescia, P.le Spedali Civili 1, 25123, Brescia, Italy

    Marco Chiarini, Cinzia Zanotti, Luigi Caimi & Luisa Imberti

  3. Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology Service, Spedali Civili and University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Paolo Airò, Mirko Scarsi & Micol Frassi

  4. Pediatrics and Laboratory of Molecular Medicine “A. Nocivelli”, Spedali Civili di Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Vassilios Lougaris & Alessandro Plebani

Authors
  1. Federico Serana
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  2. Paolo Airò
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  3. Marco Chiarini
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  4. Cinzia Zanotti
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Correspondence to Luisa Imberti.

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Supplementary Figure 1

Correlation between the average number of divisions and KRECs per milliliter in CVID patients. The number of KRECs per milliliter of each patient is plotted against the respective average number of B cell divisions. The line was obtained by simple linear regression calculated after log transformation of KRECs per milliliter values. (PPT 70 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

Percentage and number of T and B lymphocyte subpopulations (XLS 30 kb)

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Serana, F., Airò, P., Chiarini, M. et al. Thymic and Bone Marrow Output in Patients with Common Variable Immunodeficiency. J Clin Immunol 31, 540–549 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10875-011-9526-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10875-011-9526-6

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