Increased frequency of peripheral blood follicular helper T cells and elevated serum IL-21 levels in patients with knee osteoarthritis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
An aberrant immune response has been implicated in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA). However, the role of peripheral blood follicular helper T (TFH) cells in the pathogenesis of OA has yet to be elucidated. The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of TFH cells and serum interleukin‑21 (IL‑21) in the pathogenesis of OA. Frequency of peripheral blood inducible costimulator (ICOS)+, programmed death 1 (PD‑1)+, and IL‑21+ CXCR5+CD4+ T cells in 40 patients with OA and 13 healthy controls (HCs) were examined by flow cytometry. The disease state in individual patients was assessed using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC). Concentrations of serum IL‑21, interferon‑γ (INF‑γ), IL‑4, IL‑17A, and C‑reactive protein (CRP) were determined, and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was measured. The percentages of CXCR5+CD4+ cells, PD‑1+CXCR5+CD4+, ICOS+CXCR5+CD4+ and IL‑21+CXCR5+CD4+ T cells in OA patients were significantly higher than those in the HCs. Furthermore, serum IL‑21, IL‑17A and IFN‑γ levels in OA patients were significantly higher than those in HCs. Expression of IL‑21+TFH cells in OA patients demonstrated a positive correlation with OA disease activity, CRP levels and WOMAC. TFH cells and IL‑21 appear to serve an important role in the progression of OA. IL‑21+TFH cells may prove to be a marker of OA disease activity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".