Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 10|pp 9328—9343

Establishing immune scoring model based on combination of the number, function, and phenotype of lymphocytes

Guoxing Tang¹, Xu Yuan¹, Ying Luo¹, Qun Lin¹, Zhishui Chen^2,³, Xue Xing⁴, Huijuan Song¹, Shiji Wu¹, Hongyan Hou¹, Jing Yu⁵, Liyan Mao⁶, Weiyong Liu¹, Feng Wang¹, Ziyong Sun¹

¹Department of Laboratory Medicine, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
²Institute of Organ Transplantation, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
³Key Laboratory of Organ Transplantation, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
⁴Department of Nephrology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
⁵The Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
⁶Center for Cellular and Molecular Diagnosis, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA

* Equal contribution

Received: January 4, 2020Accepted: April 17, 2020Published: May 12, 2020

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103208

Copyright © 2020 Tang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: Quantitatively assessing host immunity remains a challenge in clinical practice.

Results: Most parameters in lymphocyte number, function and phenotype were correlated with age. The reference ranges of these parameters were established in four age groups (children, adolescents, adults, and elders). The numbers of CD4⁺ T cells, CD8⁺ T cells, B cells, but not NK cells, were negatively correlated with age. However, the function of CD4⁺ T cells, CD8⁺ T cells and NK cells was positively correlated with age. The expression of CD28 on T cells gradually decreased with increasing age and was negatively correlated with their function. An opposite phenomenon was observed in the expressions of HLA-DR and CD45RO on T cells. An immune scoring model was established by using 8 parameters (CD4⁺ T cell number × function, CD28⁺CD4⁺ T cell number, HLA-DR⁺CD4⁺ T cell number, CD45RO⁺CD4⁺ T cell number, CD8⁺ T cell number × function, CD28⁺CD8⁺ T cell number, HLA-DR⁺CD8⁺ T cell number, NK cell number × function) from the results of lymphocyte number, function, and phenotype. This immune scoring model showed sensitivities of 70% and 71.4% in determining hyper-immune and hypo-immune status, respectively.

Conclusions: An immune scoring model based on combination of lymphocyte number, function, and phenotype shows potential value in quantitatively assessing host immunity.

Methods: 261 healthy individuals aged 1 to 82 years were recruited from Tongji Hospital. The number, function, and phenotype of CD4⁺ T cells, CD8⁺ T cells and NK cells were simultaneously determined.