Serum‐induced basophil CD63 expression by means of a tricolour flow cytometric method for the in vitro diagnosis of chronic urticaria

Abstract

Chronic urticaria serum-induced CD63 expression assay performed on DA whole blood by means of our tricolour FCM method could be the most useful tool for identification of a subset of patients with autoimmune CU and may become a promising tool also for monitoring treatment efficacy.

Serum induced CD63 and CD203c activation tests in chronic urticaria

“…Our study is one of the first to compare CD63 and CD203c expression in a group of CU patients. Based on experience of other authors, who demonstrated that atopic donor basophils showed marked upregulation of CD63 and CD203c molecules after stimulation with serum from CU patients in this study we used highly atopic donor basophils [12,14,15]. Our study confirmed that serum from patients with CU, but not control sera, on average significantly upregulated atopic donor basophil CD63 and CD203c expression.…”

“…After ROC curve analysis, we concluded that CD203c did not have sufficient diagnostic power. Other authors, who tested CD63 [11][12][13][14][15] or CD203c expression [17] in CU patients, found significant correlation between ASST and both basophil activation tests positivity. The discrepancy between CD63 and CD203c correlations with ASST in our study can reflect either different mechanism of CD63 and CD203c molecules upregulation or differences in methodology of tests.…”

“…The estimated cut-off value for CD63 and CD203c expression to distinguished CU patients was 10%. In an earlier study by Frezzolini A. et al [12], the cut-off with the highest sensitivity and specificity (95% and 91%, respectively) was found to be 15%, -a difference that can be easily explained by basophil donor sensitivity and/or differences in various flowcytometry techniques. Significantly more patients with positive ASST (55.8%), than with negative ASST (27.1%), had elevated CD63 expression.…”

“…Recently, the ability of CU patient's serum to evoke expression of CD63 and CD203c on donor human basophils assessed by flow cytometry has been tested. There are a few published studies assessing serum-induced CD63 expression measurement as a diagnostic tool in CAU [11][12][13][14][15][16] and only 2 studies done by measured CD203c expression [16,17].…”

Chronic urticaria and thyroid autoimmunity markers

“…The basophil histamine release assay (HRA) is currently the "gold standard" for detecting functional antibodies in the serum of patients with CU [5][6][7]. Improved screening tests have been sought in the last decade; for instance, flow cytometry used to determine the ability of a CU patient's serum to evoke an expression of CD63 and CD203c on donor basophils is showing some promise [8][9][10][11][12][13].…”