Aim. To identify the characteristics of T-helper subpopulations in healthy donors and to compare them with those reported in acute leukemia patients 6 months after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT).
Materials & Methods. The study enrolled 41 blood donors and 49 patients after-HSCT. The median age of donors was 36 years (range 20–60 years), 29 of them were men and 12 were women. The median age of patients was 37 years (range 19–62 years), 18 of them were men and 31 were women. Acute myeloid leukemia was diagnosed in 27 (55 %) patients and acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma in 22 (45 %) patients. Myeloablative conditioning was administered to 4 (8 %) patients and reduced intensity conditioning to 45 (92 %) patients. T-helper subpopulations were studied in the blood of healthy donors vs. acute leukemia patients after allo-HSCT. The flow cytometry analysis was conducted to simultaneously assess the expression of markers CD3, CD4, CD8, CD25, CD45RA, CD197, CD28, CCR4, CCR6, CCR10, CXCR3, and CXCR5 in T-cells.
Results. The study demonstrated that the count of T-helpers at different stages of differentiation (regulatory, naive T-cells, memory cells, and effector cells) comprehensively distinguishes healthy donors from patients. Moreover, the functional structure of each of these populations differ in donors vs. patients even on Month +6 after allo-HSCT. Donors appeared to have more polarized cells among the central memory T-helpers. The proportion of T-helpers type 1 among the effector cells was higher is patients.
Conclusion. The results of the study indicate that the Т-cell parameter set can be analyzed to assess immunity and to describe its disorders in different pathologies or after drug chemotherapy.