| Summary: | Background: The risk of inflammatory diseases is sex-dependent, but it rema ins unknown
whether this is due to the impact of sex hormones or sex chromo somes. Transgender
individuals represent a unique cohort for studying the relative influence of endocrine
and chromosomal factors. Here we compared serum levels of B-cel l activating-factor
(BAFF) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in transgender men (TM), transgender women
(TW), cisgender women (CW) and cisgender men (CM).
Methods: BAFF and TNF were measured in the serum of 26 CW, 30 CM, 27 TM and 16 TW
individuals. To determine the responsiveness of immune cells, T NF was measured in
bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated peripheral leukocytes.
Results: BAFF was higher in CF (998 pg/mL) and TW (973 pg/mL) compared to CM (551
pg/mL) (P < 0.0001) and TM (726 pg/mL) (P < 0.0001). No difference in BAFF levels was
shown between subjects grouped according to the number of X chr omosomes. TNF
was higher in CM (174 pg/mL) than TW (2.3 pg/mL) ( P = 0.027) and TM (27.4 pg/mL)
(P = 0.028). LPS-induced TNF was higher in CM (2524 pg/mL) and TM (2078 pg/mL) than in
CW (1332 pg/mL) (both P < 0.0001) and TW (1602 pg/mL) (both P = 0.009).
Discussion: Sex hormones and sex chromosomes have different impacts on cyto kines
involved in the sex-dependent inflammatory response. The concent ration of BAFF and
LPS-stimulated TNF secretion depended on sex hormone levels, wh ereas basal TNF was
regulated by both sex hormone-dependent and -independent factors.
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