Expression Of PD-1 And Its Ligands In Peripheral Blood From Patients With Diabetic Retinopathy

1. Mengyuan Fang^1,2
2. Haike Guo¹ (corresponding author)
3. Qianli Meng1
4. Liang Zhang¹
5. Hongyang Zhang¹
6. Haiying Jin¹

¹Department of Ophthalmology, Guangdong Eye Institute, Guangdong General Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China
²Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

Purpose: To investigate the expression of PD-1 and PD-1 ligands mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR).

Methods: Forty patients with DR, including 20 nonproliferative DR (NPDR) patients and 20 proliferative DR (PDR) patients, as well as 27 age matched healthy controls were evaluated. PBMCs were collected and Fluorescent quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction was used to assess PD-1, PD-L1, PD-L2 mRNA. The data were analyzed by independent T test.

Results: mRNA of PD-1, PD-L1, and PD-L2 was detectable in all samples. PD-1 and PD-L1 mRNA expression was significantly lower in DR patients than in controls (PD-1: t=0.310 p=0.043; PD-L1: t=0.318, p=0.018). mRNA expression of PD-L2 was also decreased in DR patients but did not reach significant difference compared with the controls. There were no significant difference between NPDR patients and PDR patients.

Conclusions: A decreased mRNA expression of PD-1 and PD-L1 in PBMCs of patients with DR indicates they involvement in the occurrence of DR.