Exploration on the Difference of Circulating Immune Cell Abundance in Different Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes of Primary Liver Cancer Based on RNA-Seq
HU Rui
SUN Jialing
ZHONG Xin
LI Jing
ZHANG Wei
SUN Xinfeng
FENG Wenxing
ZHOU Xiaozhou
Abstract：Objective:To reveal the microscopic differences of peripheral immune environment in different traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)syndromes of primary liver cancer by using Transcriptome sequencing technology(RNA-Seq).Methods:A total of 81 patients with primary liver cancer(PLC)and 50 healthy ordinary people were included as the primary liver cancer group and the healthy control group.The primary liver cancer group included 17 cases of spleen deficiency and dampness syndrome,20 cases of damp-heat accumulation and toxicity syndrome,26 cases of qi deficiency and blood stasis syndrome and 18 cases of liver and kidney yin deficiency syndrome.Peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMC)of examinee were extracted for RNA-Seq sequencing.The infiltration abundance of 28 kinds of peripheral immune cells in two groups was analyzed by bioinformatics.Results:There were extensive differences in the circulating immune cell populations between the healthy control group and the primary liver cancer group.Among them,the primary liver cancer group has lower abundance of effector CD8+T cells,effector memory CD8+T cells,follicular helper T cells,natural killer like T cells,central memory CD4+T cells,effector CD4+T cells,Th1 co helper cells,mast cells,immature and activated B lymphocytes compared to the healthy control group,while neutrophils,macrophages,CD56+natural killer cells,activated dendritic cells,immature dendritic cells,monocytes,and myeloid suppressor cells(MDSC)were significantly higher than those of the healthy control group(P＜0.05).Correlation analysis showed that there were extensive interactions between 28 circulating immune cells.There were differences in the abundance of effector CD8+T cells,effector memory CD8+T cells,effector CD4+T cells,γ-delta-T cells,macrophages and Th17 helper cells in different TCM syndrome types of PLC(P＜0.05).The expression level of CD8+T cells in qi deficiency and blood stasis syndrome and liver-kidney yin deficiency syndrome was lower than that in spleen deficiency and dampness syndrome and dampness-heat accumulation and toxicity syndrome(P＜0.05).The abundance of effector memory CD8+T cells was the lowest in patients with liver-kidney yin deficiency syndrome,and there were significant differences compared with that of syndrome of spleen deficiency and dampness,syndrome of dampness-heat accumulation and toxicity(P＜0.05).The abundance of effector CD4+T cells was the lowest in patients with qi deficiency and blood stasis syndrome,and there were significant differences compared with that of syndrome of spleen deficiency and dampness,syndrome of dampness-heat accumulation and toxicity(P＜0.05).γ-δ-T cells were the lowest in spleen deficiency and dampness syndrome,and Th 17 helper cells and macrophages were the lowest in qi deficiency and blood stasis syndrome,and there were significant differences compared with that of syndrome of liver and kidney yin deficiency.Conclusions:There are differences in the abundance of circulating immune cells in different TCM syndromes of PLC,which may be the target of micro-intervention under the guidance of TCM macro-treatment.
Keywords：primary liver cancerspleen deficiency and dampness syndromedampness-heat accumulated toxicity syndromeqi deficiency and blood stasis syndromeliver-kidney yin deficiency syndromecirculating immune cellsRNA sequencing
Publication Date：2023-09-05
Online Publishing Date：2026-05-22(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：8( 955-962 )