Abstract:

Objective To detect the expressions of Toll-like receptor （TLR） 7 and 9 mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells （PBMCs） from patients with vitiligo and their significance. Methods Real-time fluorescence-based quantitative reverse transcription-PCR was performed to detect the expressions of TLR7 and TLR9 mRNA in PBMCs from 50 patients with vitiligo and 25 normal human controls. Two-sample t test was conducted by using SPSS 11.5 software to compare the expression difference of TLR7 and TLR9 mRNA between the patients and controls. Results The mRNA expression level （the ratio of the absolute copy number of a target gene to a control gene） of TLR7 and TLR9 in PBMCs were significantly higher in patients with vitiligo than in the normal human controls （0.85 ± 1.90 vs. 0.44 ± 1.18, P ＜ 0.05; 0.94 ± 2.25 vs. 0.11 ± 0.31, P ＜ 0.01）. No significant difference was observed in the expression level of TLR7 or TLR9 mRNA in PBMCs between patients with stable and active vitiligo, or between patients with localized and generalized vitiligo （both P > 0.05）. Conclusions The expression level of TLR7 and TLR9 mRNA is elevated in PBMCs from patients with vitiligo, which may be involved in the pathogenesis of vitiligo.

Key words: RT-PCR