Expression of Th1 and Th17 cytokines and transcription factors in multiple sclerosis patients: does baseline T-bet mRNA predict the response to interferon-beta treatment?

Abstract

We studied the effect of one-year interferon (IFN)-beta treatment on the in vivo mRNA expression of IFN-gamma, interleukin (IL)-17, T-bet and RoR-gammat, on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 36 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. In the total MS group, IFN-beta induced decrease in mRNA levels of IFN-gamma and T-bet (p<0.0001), while the levels of IL-17 and RoR-gammat remained similar. In both responders and non-responders, IFN-beta induced significant decrease of IFN-gamma (p<0.0001 and p=0.011, respectively), while decrease in T-bet was detected only in responders (p<0.0001). Higher pre-treatment T-bet allowed prediction of the clinical response in the first year (beta=0.601, p=0.036). Our preliminary findings suggest that T-bet expression might be a potential prognostic marker of treatment response to IFN-beta in MS.