Increase in circulating CD4CD25Foxp3 T cells in patients with Philadelphia-negative chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms during treatment with IFN-α
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Recent reports have described complete or major molecular remission in patients with polycythemia vera after long-term treatment with the immunomodulatory agent IFN-α2. Accordingly, there are reasons to believe that the immune system is a key player in eradicating the JAK2 mutated clone in these patients. Foxp3 regulatory T cells play a pivotal role in maintaining immune homeostasis and, importantly, preventing immune reactivity to self-antigens; however, their suppressive activity can compromise an effective antitumor immune response, and high frequencies of regulatory T cells in peripheral blood have been reported in both hematologic and solid cancers. We have analyzed the number, phenotype, and function of circulating CD4 CD25Foxp3 T cells in patients with chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms. Surprisingly, we found a marked expansion of this subset of lymphocytes in patients treated with IFN-α2 (13.0%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 10.8% to 15.2%) compared with healthy donors (6.1%; 95% CI 4.9% to 7.2%), patients with untreated chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms (6.9%; 95% CI 5.8% to 7.4%), or patients treated with hydroxyurea (5.8%; 95% CI 4.3% to 7.4%; P <.0001).
Original language | English |
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Journal | Blood |
Volume | 118 |
Issue number | 8 |
Pages (from-to) | 2170-2173 |
Number of pages | 4 |
ISSN | 0006-4971 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 25 Aug 2011 |
ID: 48007396