TY - JOUR JF - Res-Mol-Med JO - Res Mol Med (RMM) VL - 5 IS - 3 PY - 2017 Y1 - 2017/8/01 TI - Blimp-1 Expression as an Exhaustion Transcription Factor in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia TT - N2 - Background: PPreviously, it was shown that exhausted CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) co-express the two immune-inhibitory receptors, Tim-3 and PD-1. Present study investigated the expression of Blimp-1, a transcription factor involved in T cell exhaustion, in patients with CLL. Materials and Methods: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were collected from 25 untreated CLL patients and 15 sex- and age-matched normal subjects. CLL patients were clinically classified according to the Rai staging system. The relative expression of Blimp-1 mRNA was determined by quantitative Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) after normalization with β-actin. Results: Expression of Blimp-1 mRNA was much higher in CLL patients than in normal controls (p=0.001). Moreover, Blimp-1 was more expressed in patients with advanced clinical stages of CLL compared to those with early stages of the disease (p=0.01). Interestingly, the Blimp-1 expression was correlated with the frequencies of exhausted Tim-3+/PD-1+/CD4+ and Tim-3+/PD-1+/CD8+ T cells in CLL patients. Conclusion: Our results highlight the role of Blimp-1 transcription factor in T cell exhaustion of CLL. SP - 5 EP - 10 AU - Taghiloo, Saeid AU - Allahmoradi, Esmaeil AU - Tehrani, Mohsen AU - Janbabaei, Ghasem AU - Shekarriz, Ramin AU - Asgarian-Omran, Hossein AD - Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran KW - Exhausted T cell KW - Blimp-1 KW - Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia UR - http://rmm.mazums.ac.ir/article-1-249-en.html DO - 10.29252/rmm.5.3.5 ER -