Cytokines correlate with age in healthy volunteers, dialysis patients and kidney-transplant patients.

Torsten Böhler (1, 2) , Cindy Canivet (1) , Phuong Ngan Le Nguyen (1) , Sylvain Galvani (1) , Mogens Thomsen (1) , D. Durand (3) , Robert Salvayre (1) , Anne Nègre-Salvayre (1) , Lionel Rostaing (3) , Nassim Kamar (1, 3)

1 I2MR - Institut de médecine moléculaire de Rangueil
2 Gambro Dialysatoren GmbH
3 Service de Néphrologie - Hypertension Artérielle Dialyse - Transplantation

T-cell functions are currently used as biomarkers for the pharmacodynamic monitoring of immunosuppressive drugs or as disease biomarkers of inflammation/sepsis and organ rejection. In order to evaluate co-factors potentially influencing the expression of the immunological biomarkers, we explored T-cell proliferation, T-cell activation (CD25 and CD71 expressions) and intra-lymphocyte cytokine production (interleukin (IL)-2 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha) in healthy volunteers, dialysis patients and stable kidney-transplant patients treated with standard immunosuppressive therapy, i.e. tacrolimus, mycophenolic acid with or without steroids. Age was positively correlated with TNF-alpha expression in all three patient populations, and with IL-2 expression in healthy volunteers and kidney-transplant patients. Further age was correlated with inhibition of lymphocyte proliferation in healthy volunteers and with the T-cell activation marker CD25 in kidney-transplant patients. In healthy volunteers lymphocyte proliferation was higher in woman as compared to men. Other biomarkers of T-cell function were independent of the gender. In the kidney-transplant patient group a significantly lower expression of all biomarkers of T-cell functions compared to healthy volunteers and dialysis patients. In dialysis patients we found significant increased IL-2 expression compared to healthy volunteers, while the other T-cell functions were not significantly different. Further time on dialysis had no effect on the level of biomarker expression. In conclusion we found decreased T-cell functions in kidney-transplant patients compared to healthy volunteers and dialysis patients, increased IL-2 expression in dialysis patients compared to healthy volunteers and in all three populations we found a correlation of age and intra-T-lymphocyte TNF-alpha expression.

Torsten Böhler, Cindy Canivet, Phuong Ngan Le Nguyen, Sylvain Galvani, Mogens Thomsen, et al.. Cytokines correlate with age in healthy volunteers, dialysis patients and kidney-transplant patients.. Cytokine, 2009, 45 (3), pp.169-73. ⟨10.1016/j.cyto.2008.11.014⟩. ⟨inserm-00410387⟩