@article {Park2151, author = {Hyung-Bae Park and Ki-Chan Kim and Jae-Hong Park and Tae-Young Kang and Hye-Soon Lee and Tae-Hwan Kim and Jae-Bum Jun and Sang-Cheol Bae and Dae-Hyun Yoo and Joe Craft and Sungsoo Jung}, title = {Association of reduced CD4 T cell responses specific to varicella zoster virus with high incidence of herpes zoster in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.}, volume = {31}, number = {11}, pages = {2151--2155}, year = {2004}, publisher = {The Journal of Rheumatology}, abstract = {OBJECTIVE: To examine whether the high incidence of herpes zoster in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is associated with the frequency of memory T cells specific to varicella zoster virus (VZV). METHODS: Whole blood samples from 47 subjects [24 patients with SLE, 11 with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as a disease control, and 12 healthy negative controls] were stimulated with VZV antigen, stained for surface CD4 and CD8 and intracellularly stained for the cytokines interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin 4 (IL-4), and IL-10, followed by flow cytometry analyses. Correlations of VZV-specific T cell frequencies with the clinical status of patients were analyzed. RESULTS: Percentage of IFN-gamma-positive CD4 T cells was significantly lower in patients with SLE (0.043 +/- 0.009\%) than in RA (0.102 +/- 0.019\%) and healthy controls (0.126 +/- 0.025\%) upon VZV stimulation. A similar pattern was seen in TNF-alpha-positive CD4 T cell responses. These low frequencies of VZV-specific CD4 T cells in patients with SLE were significantly related with disease activity (r = -0.435, p = 0.043). CONCLUSION: These data suggest that the high incidence of herpes zoster in patients with SLE was related to the intrinsic defects in controlling VZV reactivation, and thus VZV-specific CD4 T cell frequency could be another practical risk factor of herpes zoster in patients with SLE.}, issn = {0315-162X}, URL = {https://www.jrheum.org/content/31/11/2151}, eprint = {https://www.jrheum.org/content/31/11/2151.full.pdf}, journal = {The Journal of Rheumatology} }