engleski

Intracellular flow cytometric determination of glucocorticoid receptor in lymphocyte subpopulations of posttraumatic stress disorder patients

Development of monoclonal antibody against human glucocorticoid receptor (GCR) enabled multiparameter flow cytometric determination of GCRs in lymphocyte subpopulations. In this study we describe the new method for flow cytometric determination of GCR at the single-cell level. Although semiquantitative method, it allows detection of GCR in well defined cell populations with high specificity and sensitivity. Evaluating GCR level in the lymphocytes is useful in defining the functional disturbances of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is psychiatric illness in which functional disturbances of the HPA axis have been described. We examined 35 PTSD patients – Croatian combat veterans 8 years after their traumatic experience, and 25 healthy, age- and sex-matched male volunteers. Whole blood was used for simultaneous labelling of surface markers on lymphocyte subpopulations (T helper and T cytotoxic cells, B cells, NK cells, naive and memory cells) and their cytoplasmic GCR. PTSD patients had lower relative quantity of GCR in all of the tested lymphocyte subpopulations compared with healthy volunteers. The NK cells of both groups showed higher expression of GCR than other lymphocyte subsets. In PTSD patients, expression of GCR in B lymphocytes was also higher than in T cell subpopulation. To our knowledge, this is the first report of such differential GCR expression.

glukokortikoidni receptori; protočna citometrija; limfociti; subpopulacije; PTSP

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