Smoking-induced HLA-DQA1 overexpression in T cells: a novel pathway in thyroid eye disease development - PubMed

3 hours ago

Smoking is linked to changes in immune cell profiles, including decreased leukocytes and neutrophils, but increased lymphocytes.
Elevated lymphocyte levels correlate positively with thyroid hormones FT3 and TT3.
Thyroid eye disease (TED) patients show increased follicular helper T cells and plasma cells in orbital tissues.
Summary-data-based Mendelian randomization identifies HLA-DQA1 and HLA-DQB1 as causal risk factors for TED.
Smoking induces upregulation of genes in T cells, including HLA-DQA1/DQB1, confirmed by RT-qPCR in TED patients who smoke.
The study concludes smoking exacerbates TED by increasing T cells and promoting HLA-DQA1 overexpression, advocating smoking cessation.

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