Discussion
Organ failure, or multiple organ failure, is an important reason for the
death of elderly people, mostly those over 70 years old. Organ failure
includes chronic diseases of important body organs such as trachea,
heart, kidney, and brain17. Complications include
shortness of breath, rapid drop in blood pressure, hypoxia of lips and
nails, unresponsiveness of the optic nerve, hazy consciousness, hypoxia
of blood, shock, coma, etc18,19. sST2 protein belongs
to the interleukin 1 receptor family and can be produced by
cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts when they are subjected to
mechanical tension4. sST2 antagonizes the activation
of IL-33 pathway and promotes the occurrence of cardiomyocyte
hypertrophy and myocardial fibrosis20, and is
increasingly regarded as a new marker for the diagnosis of heart
failure. With the deepening of research, published data have shown that
sST2 was involved in airway inflammation21, pulmonary
hypertension22, schizophrenia23 and
other diseases. As a plasticity population,
CD4+T cells play
an important role in the process of tissue damage and repair. For
example, in the inflammatory environment, CD4+T cells
differentiate into Th17 and then participate in myocardial inflammatory
injury24, kidney25 and liver
fibrosis26, etc. Therefore, the origin of sST2 and
whether it is involved in the regulation of
CD4+T cells
differentiation and thus in OF are the focus of research.
The present results demonstrate that the expression of the inflammatory
mediator IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-α were increased in peripheral blood serum
of OF patients caused by inflammatory injury and the serum sST2 levels
were also significantly up-regulated compare with NC. It suggests that
sST2 can be used as a screening index for OF. At the same time, we also
found that the number of CD4+T cells in peripheral
blood decreased in patients with increased sST2. Additionally, some data
show that IL-33/ST2 axis could regulate the proliferation of regulatory
T cells (Treg)27, whether it suggests that sST2 may
regulate CD4+T cells function and participate in OF
remains to be confirmed.
In conclusion, the regulation of sST2 on OF is partly dependent on
CD4+T cells, and sST2 is an important screening
indicator for the diagnosis of organ failure.