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Immune Cellular Phenotypes in Blood of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder- a Pilot Study
Background:
Immunological abnormalities has been proposed to contribute to the pathophysiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In order to further elucidate this role, there is a need to study the immunological parameters in a comprehensive manner in ASD.
Objectives:
To study the immune cells in the peripheral blood of children with ASD in comparison with typical developing children.
Methods:
Twenty children (3 to 12 years of age) with ASD (DSM 5 criteria), were recruited from Child and Adolescent Psychiatry services, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore. Age and sex matched twenty typically developing children were recruited as controls. The frequencies of various subsets of T cells, B cells, Monocytes, Natural Killer Cells and Dendritic Cells in the peripheral blood were characterised using 26 markers according to Human Immunology Project Consortium guidelines.
Results:
On preliminary analysis, we did not find any significant difference in subsets of Monocytes, Dendritic cells, Natural Killer cells and B cells in children with ASD when compared to typical developing children. There are few differences between the 2 groups in some of the subsets of T cells.
Conclusions:
There appears to be no difference in innate and humoral immune cell subsets in children with ASD in our study. Larger studies with higher sample size are required to validate this finding. Further, immune changes in T cells found in our initial analysis adds on to the previous literature that implicates T cell abnormalities in ASD. Final results of our study will be discussed.