Authors: Betjes MG, Meijers RW, de Wit LE, Litjens NH
Abstract
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with a sharp increase in the risk for cardiovascular disease, which can only be partially explained by known classical risk factors. However, there is a well-established association with increased systemic inflammation. In the last decade, an unique cytotoxic CD4+ T cell population has been identified, which can be recognized by the loss of the costimulatory cell surface marker CD28, hence their name CD4+CD28null T cells. These cells are highly proinflammatory, have the functional features of professional killer lymphocytes and can expand from less than 1% to over 50% of the total CD4+ T cell population. In this review, we show that these cells probably play an important role i...