Effects of opioid therapy on human natural killer cells

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• 作者：Giovanna Tabellini ; Elisa Borsani ; Marzia Benassi ; Ornella Patrizi ; Doris Ricotta ; Luigi Caimi ; Roberto Lanzi ; Fabrizio Micheli ; Vittorio Iorno ; Raffaella Bettaglio ; Rita Rezzani ; Luigi F. Rodella ; Silvia Parolini
• 关键词：Human subjects ; Chronic pain ; Opioid therapy ; NK cells
• 刊名：International Immunopharmacology
• 出版年：January, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：18
• 期：1
• 页码：169-174
• 全文大小：750 K

文摘

Opioid compounds, such as morphine, induce powerful analgesic effects and are extensively used clinically to treat a wide variety of pain. The aim of our study was to evaluate the impact of opioid therapy on phenotype and function peripheral blood NK cells. The patients were referred to three Italian pain therapy centers (Milan, Pavia, Piacenza) for chronic pain in neuropathic or mixed somatic components. The patients were between 18 and 75 years old and were of Caucasian ethnicity. We studied the expression of activating and inhibitory NK receptors to discriminate NK subsets with different CD56 surface expression intensities (CD56^bright and CD56^dull NK cells). The flow cytometry analysis of the NK cells was at normal levels in peripheral blood lymphocytes with fewer CD56^bright compared to the CD56^dull NK cell subset when compared to blood from drug free donors. Furthermore, the cytolytic activity of in vitro patient NK cells analyzed was not lower, as would be expected from the regular expression of activating NK receptors for both subsets. Taken together, these data indicate that NK cells from opioid treated patients do not show any signs of NK cell immune-suppression.