Dynamic Changes in Lymphocyte Subsets and Inflammation-Immune-Related Proteins in Patients with Thyroid Papillary Carcinoma before and after Radioactive Iodine Therapy

Radioactive iodine
therapy (RAIT) is one of the main treatment
methods for patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Peripheral
blood samples were collected from 29 PTC patients who underwent total
thyroidectomy 1–2 days before RAIT (RAIT-0), 30 days after
(RAIT-30), and 90 days after (RAIT-90). Flow cytometry was used to
detect the absolute counts of peripheral blood lymphocyte subpopulations,
and the Proximity Extension Assay (PEA) was used for targeted proteome
quantification. We found that after RAIT, peripheral blood lymphocyte
subpopulations and the abundance of inflammation-related proteins
in PTC patients changed and did not return to pretreatment levels
for a long time. The immune pathway “Cytokine-cytokine receptor
interaction” related to cytokine signaling may be activated.
In addition, there were two types of protein trends that were similar
to the lymphocyte count trends. The five proteins with the greatest
degree of trend change were MCP-1, TRAIL, TGF-alpha, Flt3L, and IL15.
In RAIT-30 vs RAIT-0, B cells were significantly negatively correlated
with protein Flt3L, and Th17 cells were significantly positively correlated
with protein CRTAM. MCP-1, TRAIL, IL15, Flt3L, TGF-alpha, and CRTAM
may be potential marker proteins for immune recovery in PTC patients
after RAIT.