Recruitment mechanism of Th22 cells in malignant ascites of ovarian cancer

LU Weishun; QIN Shanyu; JIANG Haixing; TAN Shihui; YANG Xianwen; LUO Wei; LU Donghong

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2016.09.003

Abstract：Objective To observe the distribution of Th22 cells in malignant ascites ( MA) of ovarian cancer and to investigate its recruitment mechanism in the abdominal cavity.Methods Twenty-three cases of ovarian cancer pa-tients with MA ( observation group ) and 13 healthy women ( control group) were selected.Density gradient centrifu-gation was used to collect the mononuclear cells from MA and peripheral blood.The proportion of Th17 and Th22 cells from MA and peripheral blood, and the expression of chemokines in Th22 cells were detected by flow cytometry.The levels of IL-17 and IL-22 in MA and supernatant were examined by ELISA, and the correlations between Th22 cells and Th17 cells were determined by Spearman's rank correlation coefficients.Results The proportion of Th22 and Th17 cells in MA was significantly higher than that in peripheral blood from the observation group and control group (all P<0.05).In the observation group, the proportions of Th22 cells in MA with CCR4, CCR7 and CD45RO were higher and the proportions of Th22 cells in MA with CD45RA and CD62L were lower than those in the peripheral blood ( all P<0.05) .The levels of IL-17 and IL-22 in MA were higher than those from the peripheral blood in the observation group and control group (all P<0.05).Spearman's rank correlation coefficients showed that the propor-tion of Th22 cells was positively correlated with the proportion of Th17 cells in MA (r=0.66, P<0.01), the level of IL-22 had a positive correlation with the proportion of Th22 cells and Th17 cells in MA ( r=0.55, 0.54; all P<0 .05 ) .Conclusions Th22 cells may be recruited from peripheral blood to MA of ovarian cancer by chemokines and cytokines.