Abstract: Objective To evaluate the expression pattern and levels of multiple cytokines among T helper cells in
the peripheral blood of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in immune clearance stages by multi-color flow
cytometry analysis. Methods Total of 10 cases with CHB in immune clearance stages and 10 healthy donors in
Beijing Ditan Hospital, Capital Medical University from March 2017 to April 2017 were selected. Monoclonal
antibodies CD3, CD4, CD8, GM-CSF, TNF-α and IFN-γ were used to establish the six-color flow cytometry
analysis panel. The peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) sample from one healthy donor was applied to
adjust the optimal detection voltage, fluorescence compensation and FMO control. Compared with anti-CD3/28
mAbs, the PMA-Ionomycin was identified as an ideal stimulant for intracellular cytokine staining. PBMCs were
isolated from 10 CHB patients and cultured with PMA-Ionomycin for 5 hours. Targeting cells were stained via
intracellular cytokines staining procedure. The cells were acquired by multi-color flow cytometre LSR Fortessa
and were analyzed by Flowjo 10.0 cytometry analysis software. The positive propotions were compared between
CHB patients and healthy donors by Graph Pad Prism7.0 software. Results The multi-color flow cytometry
intracellular cytokine staining procedure was established for the functional evaluation of T cells. We first set up
the gating strategy to analyze the co-expression pattern of GM-CSF, TNF-α, IFN-γ and therefore confirmed the
presence of GM-CSF + TNF-α + , GM-CSF + IFN-γ + Th cells subsets. Simultaneously, the proportion of GM-CSF + ,
GM-CSF + TNF-α + and GM-CSF + IFN-γ + Th cells were significantly higher in CHB patients compared with healthy
donors (t = 2.576, 4.208, 2.671; P < 0.05). Conclusions The multi-color intracellular cytokine staining procedure
with flow cytometry technique can be used to analyze the multiple cytokine producing pattern among Th cells
subsets in CHB patients. The proportion of GM-CSF + TNF-α + and GM-CSF + IFN-γ + Th cells subsets might be a
potential predictor for the immune status of CHB patients
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