The role of peripheral type 2 innate lymphoid cells in bronchiolitis

Abstract Our aim was to detect type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s)-related cytokines of infants with bronchiolitis by using Elisa, Liquidchip technology and RT-PCR and investigated its correlation with bronchiolitis. We recruited 26 infants with bronchiolitis and 20 healthy infants as control from Xiangya Hospital. Compared to the control group, the serum levels of interleukin-5 (IL-5) [41.99 (21.11) vs 25.70 (19.64)], IL-9 [27.04 (37.51) vs 8.30 (0.54)], IL-13 [184.05 (132.81) vs 121.75 (176.13)], IL-33 [83.70 (46.69) vs 11.23 (55.31)] and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) [31.42 (5.41) vs 28.76 (2.56)] were significantly increased in infants with bronchiolitis (P 0.05]. The mRNA expression of IL-17RB (9.83 ± 0.35 vs 9.19 ± 0.58), TSLP (16.98 ± 2.12 vs 15.07 ± 2.25), retinoid acid receptor related orphan receptor α (7.18 ± 0.71 vs 5.46 ± 1.09) and trans-acting T-cell-specific transcription factor 3 (4.86 ± 0.66 vs 4.19 ± 0.90) were significantly increased in infants with bronchiolitis versus the control group (P 0.05). Our findings suggested that ILC2s possibly play a specific role in immunopathology of bronchiolitis.