Abstract:
Objective To investigate the correlation between the levels of interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R), forkhead/winged helix spiral transcription factor p3 (FOXP3), and regulatory T (Treg) cells in peripheral blood of sepsis patients and the severity and prognosis of sepsis.
Methods Eighty sepsis patients were selected as the observation group and divided into a death group and a survival group based on their 28-day prognosis, and 75 health examinees during the same period were selected as the control group.ELISA was used to detect serum IL-2R levels; RT-qPCR was applied to determine FOXP3 levels; flow cytometry was employed to measure peripheral blood Treg cell levels; Pearson analysis was performed to analyze the correlation between peripheral blood IL-2R, FOXP3, Treg cell levels and acute physiology and chronic health score (APACHEⅡ), sequential organ failure score (SOFA); COX regression was carried out to analyze the influencing factors of sepsis prognosis; ROC curve was used to evaluate the predictive efficacy of peripheral blood IL-2R, FOXP3, Treg cell levels alone and in combination on 28-day prognosis of sepsis patients.
Results The levels of IL-2R, FOXP3, and Treg cells in the peripheral blood of patients in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.01).The levels of IL-2R, FOXP3, and Treg cells in the peripheral blood of patients in the death group were higher than those in the survival group (P < 0.05 to P < 0.01).Compared with the survival group, the APACHEⅡ score and SOFA score of patients in the death group were significantly increased (P < 0.01).The IL-2R levels in peripheral blood of sepsis patients were positively correlated with FOXP3 levels, Treg cell levels, APACHEⅡ score, and SOFA score (r=0.611, 0.583, 0.579, 0.558, P < 0.05);FOXP3 levels were positively correlated with Treg cell levels, APACHEⅡ score, and SOFA score (r=0.594, 0.585, 0.622, P < 0.05);Treg cell levels were positively correlated with APACHEⅡ score and SOFA score (r=0.572, 0.554, P < 0.05).COX regression analysis showed that IL-2R, FOXP3, and Treg cells were independent risk factors affecting the prognosis of sepsis patients (P < 0.01).ROC curve analysis indicated the AUC of IL-2R, FOXP3, Treg cell levels in peripheral blood and their combination for predicting adverse prognosis in sepsis patients were 0.717, 0.712, 0.790, and 0.829, respectively.Among them, the AUC of the combined prediction was higher than that of the individual prediction (P < 0.05).
Conclusions The levels of IL-2, Foxp3 and Treg cells in the peripheral blood of sepsis patients are greatly increased, which is closely related to the severity of disease and prognosis, and may be used to evaluate the prognosis of sepsis patients.