Short-term and low-dose IL-2 therapy restores the Th17/Treg balance in the peripheral blood of patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome

Based on evidence that low-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) increases CD4+CD25+FOXP3+ Treg (CD4Treg) cells in patients with graft-versus-host disease, induction of autoimmune tolerance has been proposed as a treatment.1 However, evidence-based guidelines for the management of primary Sjogren’s syndrome (pSS) are lacking.2 Using a modified method of flow cytometry, we aimed to revaluate the exact levels of Th17 and CD4Treg cells in the peripheral blood (PB) of patients with pSS and explore the effects of short-term and low-dose IL-2.3 4 A total of 190 patients with pSS (169, treated with immunosuppressants; 21, new-onset (sampled as treated or new pSS patients below)) consented at enrolment to donate PB samples for comprehensive immunophenotyping (see online supplementary table S1 and figure S1). In the study, BD Trucount tubes were used to determine the absolute counts of total CD4+ T cells in the PB, and then, the absolute number of CD4+ T subsets, such as CD4Treg cells, were calculated. Detailed methods and statistical analysis is in online version (see online supplementary text).  ### Supplementary file 11 [annrheumdis-2018-213036-SP11.docx] Among the CD4+ T subsets in the PB of the healthy control …