Volgens een studie van
Bansal en collega's duiden afwijkingen in de hoeveelheden
van diverse B-cel-ondersoorten wellicht op een rol voor auto-immuniteit in ME/CVS.
Bradley, Ford en Bansal observeerden
- relatief hogere concentraties naïeve B-cellen
(B-cellen die die nog niet blootgesteld zijn aan/geactiveerd zijn door de antigeen),
- lagere aantallen transitionele B-cellen
(B-cellen die recent het beenmerg hebben verlaten) en
- lagere concentraties plasmablasten (de voorlopers van plasma B-cellen,
gevormd bij blootstelling aan de antigeen, bijv. virus of "lichaamseigen" antigeen).
bron:
Cherie L. Green, John Ferbas and Barbara A. Sullivan (2012).
B Cells in Health and Disease – Leveraging Flow Cytometry to Evaluate Disease Phenotype and the Impact of Treatment with Immunomodulatory Therapeutics,
Clinical Flow Cytometry – Emerging Applications, M.Sc. Ingrid Schmid (Ed.),
ISBN: 978-953-51-0575-6, InTech, DOI: 10.5772/38288.
http://www.intechopen.com/books/clinical-flow-cytometry-
emerging-applications/b-cells-in-health-and-disease-leveraging-
flow-cytometry-to-evaluate-disease-phenotype-and-the-impact
Altered functional B cell subset populations
in patients with ME/CFS compared to healthy controls
Clin Exp Immunol. 2013 Apr;172(1):73-80. doi: 10.1111/cei.12043.
Bradley AS, Ford B, Bansal AS.
Abstract
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)
is a heterogeneous disorder of unknown aetiology characterized by
disabling fatigue, headaches, sleep disturbance and several other symptoms.
The onset of CFS may follow a viral infection or period of stress.
Patients with CFS do not have hypogammaglobulinaemia,
predisposition to recurrent bacterial infections or symptoms of autoimmunity.
To date, defects in B cell numbers or function
have not been shown in the literature.
However,
treatment with anti-B cell therapy using Rituximab
has recently shown benefit to CFS patients.
We therefore postulated that
patients with CFS had a subtle humoral immune dysfunction, and
performed extended B cell immunophenotyping.
We undertook a detailed characterization of
the proportions of the different B cell subsets
in 33 patients with CFS fulfilling the Canadian and Fukada criteria for CFS and
compared these with 24 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC).
CFS patients had
greater numbers of naive B cells as a percentage of lymphocytes:
6,3 versus 3,9% in HC (P=0,034),
greater numbers of naive B cells as a percentage of B cells:
65 versus 47% in controls (P=0,003),
greater numbers of transitional B cells:
1,8 versus 0,8% in controls (P=0,025) and
reduced numbers of plasmablasts:
0,5 versus 0,9% in controls (P=0,013).
While the cause of these changes is unclear,
we speculate whether they may suggest a subtle tendency to autoimmunity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23480187
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