CCR7 expression in T cell subsets in children with allergic diseases

众所周知，与成人相比，婴儿和幼儿表现出较低的产生免疫应答的能力，导致对感染性和过敏性疾病的易感性增加。趋化因子受体之一的CCR 7已被描述为两种不同类型的记忆T细胞（称为中枢记忆T细胞和效应记忆T细胞）的定义因子。因此，我们评估了健康和过敏儿童CCR 7表达的发育变化。虽然随着年龄的增长，CD 4+和CD 8 + T细胞上的CCR 7表达动态变化，但在健康和过敏受试者之间没有显著差异。然后，我们评估了IL-12产生的发育变化，IL-12在Th 1细胞的发育中具有重要作用。单核细胞产生IL-12的能力在出生时可以忽略不计，并随着年龄的增长而逐渐增加。在超过7岁时，过敏受试者的IL-12产生显著低于健康受试者。意外的发现是，食物过敏的婴儿具有更高的IL-12产生能力。这些结果表明，许多免疫因素随着年龄的增长而发展，其中一些与变态反应性疾病有关。在临床情况下，监测这些标志物可能有助于评估过敏性疾病的Th 1/Th 2平衡。

It is well known that infants and young children show a lower capability to mount immune responses as compared with adults, resulting in an increasing susceptibility to infectious and allergic diseases, CCR7, one of chemokine receptors, has been described as a defining factor for two different types of memory T cells, termed central and effector memory T cells. Therefore, we evaluated developmental changes in CCR7 expression of healthy and allergic children. Although CCR7 expression on CD4+ and CD8+ T cells changed dynamically as aging, there was no significant difference between healthy and allergic subjects. Then we evaluated developmental changes in production of IL-12, which has an important role in developing Th1 cells. The ability of monocytes to produce IL-12 was negligible at birth and gradually, increased with advancing age. At more than 7 years of age, IL-12 production of allergic subjects was significantly lower compared with healthy subjects. The unexpected finding was that infants with food allergy had higher ability of IL-12 production. These results suggest that many immunological factors developed as aging, and that some of them are related with allergic diseases. In clinical situation, monitoring these markers could be useful to evaluate Th1/Th2 balance in allergic diseases.