Objective To investigate the effects of glycosaminoglycans (HGAG) on the immune function of peripheral blood cells from patients with pulmonary tuberculosis.Methods Peripheral blood monouclear cells (PBMC) were isolated from peripheral blood of 40 healthy people (healthy group) and 30 tuberculosis patients (tuberculosis group) and cocultured with HGAG in vitro for 24 hours.Flow cytometry was used to detect the expression of CD45RA and CD45RO,as well as the expression of CD1a and CD83.Results The results showed that the expression of CD45RA and CD45RO in the tuberculosis group was the most significant (P ＜ 0.05) at the concentration of 50 μg/m coculturing with HGAG.The expression of CD45RA and CD45RO were most obvious in the healthy group at the concentration of 10 μg/ml and 50 μg/ml respectively (P ＜0.001).The difference of CD45RA between the two groups was no significant (P ＞0.05),while the difference of CD45RO was statistically significant (P ＜ 0.01) before co-culturing.The expression of CD45RA and CD45RO at 10 μg/ml and 50 μg/ml after co-culturing with HGAG were statistically significant (P ＜ 0.05).There was no statistical difference in CD1a and CD83 in healthy group before and after co-culturing (P ＞ 0.05),while there was statistically difference (P ＜ 0.05) before and after culturing in tuberculosis group.Before co-culturing,there was no significant difference in the expression of CD1a between the healthy group and the tuberculosis group (P ＞ 0.05),but CD83 expression was statistically different (P ＜ 0.001).After co-culturing,there were no significant differences in CD1a and CD83 expression between healthy and healthy groups (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions HGAG can down-regulate the expression of CD45RA and up-regulate the expression of CD45RO in a certain concentration range,and promote the maturation of dendritic cells (DC) in tuberculosis patients and regulate the cellular immunity of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in vitro.