OBJECTIVETo explore the role of treg cells and its functional markers in pathogenesis of chronic hepatitis B, and the correlation with disease progression.

METHODS20 cases of healthy control people,53 cases of chronic hepatitis B patients and 24 cases of liver cirrhosis patients were enrolled into the groups. Detecting the frequencies of CD4+ CD25+ Fox3+ cells, CD4+ CD25+ CD127(low) cells, CD39+ treg cells and CTLA-4+ treg cells in treg cells by flow cytometry. Clinical parameters were investigated in the same time.

RESULTSThe frequencies of treg cells, CD4+ CD25+ CD127(low) cells and CD39+ treg cells were significant different among healthy control group, CHB group and LC group (P < 0.01). The frequencies of treg cells, CD4+ CD25+ CD127(low) cells and CD39+ treg cells were significantly different in moderate-severe CHB group compared with mild CHB group (P < 0.05, P < 0.05, P < 0.01). In CHB group the frequencies of CD4+ CD25+ Foxp3+ cells were positively correlated with ALT (r = 0. 289, P < 0.05) and AST (r = 0.302, P < 0.05), the frequencies of CD4+ CD25+ Foxp3+ cells had a significant positive correlation with the frequencies of CD4+ CD25+ CD127(low) cells (r = 0.478, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONThe frequencies of treg cells and its functional markers probably had a dynamic tendency in the process of chronic hepatitis B and were closely related with the change of liver function parameters. CD39+ treg cells may be a group of functional treg cells, which indicated that CD39 be a sensitive marker to react treg cells function. In some sense, CD4+ CD25+ CD127(low) cells frequency could represent treg cell frequency.