ABSTRACTS – ORAL PRESENTATIONS - AMCA, spol. s r.o.

et al. 2006), we speculate that defects in interferon induced plasma cell differentiation
is defective in cluster_5 patients. Biological consequences of these genomic alterations
are currently being investigated.
The results demonstrate the usefulness of standardised flow cytometry profiling of large
group of patients samples.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by IGA NT/11414-5, IGA NT/13271, P302/12/G101, UNCE
204012, 00064203.
References
Asokan et. al. Characterization of Human Complement Receptor Type 2 (CR2/CD21) as
a Receptor for IFN-α: A Potential Role in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, The Journal of
Immunology vol. 177 no. 1 383-394, July 1, 2006
37. EFFECT OF GENETIC RISK FACTORS ON IMMUNE CELL PHENOTYPES IN PATIENTS
WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS
L. Chovanova 1,2 , M. Vlcek 1,2 , K. Krskova 1 , F. Spoutil 3 , J. Rovensky 4 , R. Brownlie 5 ,
R. Zamoyska 5 , R. Imrich 1,2
1
Institute of Experimental Endocrinology; lucia.chovanova@savba.sk
2
Center for Molecular Medicine, Slovak Academy of Sciences;
3
Institute of Experimental Medicine, Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic;
4
National Institute of Rheumatic Diseases, Piestany, Slovak Republic
5
Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh,
United Kingdom
The involvement of genetics, environment and autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of
rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been proposed recently. The most important genetic factor
is the shared epitope (SE) sequence in HLA-DRB1 molecule, followed by more than 30
variants in potentially pathogenic non-MHC genes. The knowledge about their actual
effect on immune cell function and related mechanisms is relatively poor.
The aim of our study was to obtain a broader picture of relations between circulating
immune cell phenotype, cytokine production after stimulation and the genetic
background.
PBMC were isolated from 35 healthy individuals and 36 RA patients with known genotype
in the genes: PTPN22, STAT4, CTLA4, PADI4, AFF3, IRF5, TRAF1/C5 and HLA-DRB1. The
proportions of selected PBMC subsets were analysed by flow cytometry. TNF-α, IFN-γ
and IL-17 production was assessed after stimulation with PMA/ionomycin. Redundancy
analysis (RDA) was applied to analyse the data.
RDA analysis showed that higher proportions of memory B cells and TCRγδ cells were
associated with the presence of risk allele in PTPN22 and AFF3. Risk alleles in IRF5, STAT4
and TRAF1/C5 genes were associated with increased production of TNF-α and IFN-γ by
NKT cells regardless of the diagnosis.
Alterations in immune cell proportions and cytokine secretion are suggested as the
Analytical Cytometry VII 57