Enhanced deformability of immune cells in patients with depression found for the first time

Depression is mainly manifested as low mood, decreased interest, slow thinking, poor diet, poor sleep and other sympto.

Depression is also associated with increased rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's disea.

More notably, more than 700,000 people commit suicide each year due to depressi.

There are also many people who equate depression with depressed negativity in their lives without knowing it is a serious illne.

Additionally, many people with depression delay their condition because they are not properly diagnos.

Recently, researchers from the research group of Andreas Walther at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany published important research results in the journal Translational Psychiatry [

Depressed patients, especially those with persistent depressive disorder (PDD), have more deformed peripheral blood cells than healthy individua.

Among them, lymphocytes, monocytes and neutrophils are the immune cells most affected by depressi.

The study is the first to find that people with depression have an increased ability to deform immune cel.

This change in the mechanical properties of immune cells suggests that depression is associated with a sustained immune response in the bo.

Precisely regulating the deformability of immune cells in patients with depression may be a new idea for the treatment of depression in the futu.

The pathophysiological mechanism of depression has not yet been elucidat.

Hyperactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and chronic low-grade inflammation are two currently recognized pathophysiological features associated with depression [

Numerous studies have found elevated levels of cortisol and pro-inflammatory cytokines in people with depression, suggesting that depression is associated with activation of the immune syst.

In recent years, studies have also confirmed that various types of immune cells in the peripheral blood of patients with depression are significantly increased [

The activation of the immune system is not only reflected in the number of cells, but also in the dysfunction of immune cel.

However, there is no direct evidence that people with depression have abnormal immune cell functi.

Inside the cell, there is an extremely complex network of protein fibers called the cytoskelet.

The cytoskeleton gives cells the ability to actively deform and resist passive deformation, that is, cell deformabili.

Cell deformability is closely related to cell function and can be used as a good indicator to reflect cell functi.

Andreas Walther's team recruited 220 participants (18-68 years old) from the Dresden Burnout Study (DBS) coho.

Depression risk was initially assessed by using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), group.

The researchers then further refined the DIA-X-5 composite international diagnostic interview to assess the type of depressive disord.

Finally, the researchers took a 20 μl blood sample from the subject’s fingertip, and detected the deformability of blood cells with the help of a real-time cell deformation counter (RT-DC) (see Figure 1) to obtain the cell size and deformation rate of each type of cel.

FigureSchematic illustration of the real-time cell deformation counter and the subsequent artificial intelligence-based blood cell separation meth.

After excluding uncooperative or manic participants, there were 69 cases in the case group (PHQ-9 score > 10) and 70 in the control group (PHQ-9 age- and sex-matched, score <

After further evaluation of the type of depressive disorder, the final enrollment results were: 30 patients with lifelong persistent depressive disorder (LTPDD), 15 patients with 1-year persistent depressive disorder (12-month PDD), 15 patients with lifelong depression ( LTMDD) patien.

There were 12 cases of depression for 1 year (12 months MDD), and 62 cases of healthy control gro.

The results of cytometry showed that compared with the control group, the deformability of monocytes, granule monocytes and neutrophils in the lifelong persistent depression group was significantly increased (see Figure 2);

Lymphocyte deformability was increased in the 1-year depression group; in the lifetime depression group, the deformability of various blood cells did not chan.

Significant changes have occurr.

FigureBoxplots of blood cell deformability in patients with lifetime persistent depression and healthy controls

To confirm the correlation between the severity of depression and the enhancement of blood cell deformability, the researchers performed a partial correlation analysis between each depression group and the control group, adjusting for age, sex, body mass index, and psychotropic medication factors (see Figure

RESULTS: In the lifelong persistent depressive disorder group, PHQ-9 scores were associated with increased monocyte, neutrophil, and granule-monocyte deformabili.

In addition, PHQ-9 scores were independently associated with enhanced monocyte and erythrocyte deformability at 1-year persistent depressive disorder and 1-year persistent depressive disorder, respective.

FigureCorrelation between PHQ-9 score and blood cell deformability in each group

So far, we can definitively associate depression with increased deformability of peripheral blood immune cel.

It's worth pondering why this happens to immune cells in depressed patients? The researchers speculate that this may be related to hyperactivation of the HPA axis and chronic low-grade inflammati.

Both cortisol produced by activation of the HPA axis and proinflammatory factors produced by the inflammatory response can affect the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton and increase the deformability of cells [

In addition, increases in cortisol and pro-inflammatory factors also affect lipid formati.

Lipids are an important component of cell membranes, and interference with lipid formation means that the stability of cell membranes may be reduced, thereby exhibiting cell deformability [

This study is the first to assess the relationship between depression and cell deformability in major blood cell types, elucidating the effect of depression on the mechanical properties of primary immune cel.

The researchers used a high-throughput real-time cell deformation counter combined with artificial intelligence image processing to provide the highest level of validity and reliability for clinical assessment of depressi.

Of course, the limitations of this study are also obvio.

The people participating in the study were not newly diagnosed patients who had never taken antidepressants, and the potential effects of the drugs on the ability of cells to deform should not be underestimat.

In addition, the proportion of males is lower, and there is a selection bias in gend.

Changes in cell mechanical properties are closely related to pathological processes and physiological functio.

The enhancement of immune cell deformability in patients with depression provides a new understanding of the pathophysiological mechanism of depressi.

The precise regulation of the mechanical properties of immune cells may become a new idea for the treatment of depression in the futu.

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