[Detection of Th17/treg cell-associated cytokines in peripheral blood of patients with graft-versus-host disease and its clinical significance].

To investigate the peripheral levels and clinical significance of Th17/Treg cell-associated cytokines in patients with acute graft versus host disease (aGVHD) or chronic GVHD (cGVHD), blood samples were collected from 39 hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation patients and 20 healthy donors. The patients included 10 patients with aGVHD, 13 patients with cGVHD and 16 patients without evidence of GVHD. Th17/Treg cell-associated cytokines such as IFNγ, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TGF-β(1), IL-17 and IL-23 were detected by ELISA. The results showed that the plasma levels of IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-6, IL-17 and IL-23 significantly increased in patients with aGVHD or cGVHD, compared with the patients without clinical signs of GVHD and the healthy donors (p < 0.05), while IL-10 and TGF-β(1) were obviously lower than that of them (p < 0.05). After aGVHD and cGVHD patients were treated effectively, the plasma levels of IL-6, IL-17 and IL-23 were significantly decreased, and IL-10, TGF-β(1) were significantly increased, while the levels of IFN-γ and IL-4 did not markedly change. The TGF-β(1) level were negatively correlated with IL-6 (r = -0.36, p < 0.05), IL-17 (r = -0.51, p < 0.05) and IL-23 (r = -0.44, p < 0.05) respectively, while there were positive correlations between IL-6 and IL-17 (r = 0.62, p < 0.05), IL-6 and IL-23 (r = 0.71, p < 0.05), IL-17 and IL-23 (r = 0.93, p < 0.05). It is concluded that Th17/Treg cell-associated cytokines may play an important role in the development of a/cGVHD, which helps to find novel targets for developing new strategies of GVHD treatment.