Transcriptomic profiling of circulating T follicular helper cells in kidney transplant recipients

We compared the transcriptomic profile between patients without donor-specific HLA antibodies (DSA-), patients with donor-specific HLA antibodies without antibody-mediated rejection (DSA+ ABMR-) and patients with donor-specific HLA antibodies and antibody-mediated rejection (DSA+ ABMR+). We found that patient with DSA+ ABMR+ had a distinct transcriptomic profile compared to DSA- and DSA+ ABMR-, characterized by upregulation of genes encoding for germinal center T follicular helper cells function, T-B cell interaction and costimulatory molecules. We analysed N=3 samples per group of patients (DSA-, DSA+ABMR-, DSA+ ABMR+), without replicates

我们对三组患者的转录组谱（transcriptomic profile）进行了比较：无供者特异性HLA抗体（donor-specific HLA antibodies, DSA）的患者（DSA-组）、存在供者特异性HLA抗体但未发生抗体介导排斥反应（antibody-mediated rejection, ABMR）的患者（DSA+ ABMR-组），以及同时存在供者特异性HLA抗体与抗体介导排斥反应的患者（DSA+ ABMR+组）。研究发现，与DSA-组及DSA+ ABMR-组相比，DSA+ ABMR+组患者具有独特的转录组特征，其特征为编码生发中心T滤泡辅助细胞（germinal center T follicular helper cells）功能、T细胞-B细胞相互作用（T-B cell interaction）及共刺激分子（costimulatory molecules）的基因表达上调。本研究每组纳入3例患者样本（N=3），未设置生物学重复。