Transcriptional profiling was used to characterize the immunologic networks in subjects with CVID who have inflammatory complications to identify clues as to pathogenesis and potentially better modes of treatment.

CVID subjects who fulfilled the standard diagnostic criteria, including significantly decreased levels of IgG, IgA, and/or IgM and poor or absent specific antibody production were enrolled. They were classified into, with or without characteristic inflammatory complications, as previously designated (hematologic or organ-specific autoimmunity, biopsy-proven granulomatous disease, or interstitial lung disease, lymphoid hyperplasia/ with splenomegaly or gastrointestinal inflammatory disease). 59 patients were included in the training set and 21 healthy controls and for test set 32 patients and 15 healthy controls. Disease controls included 6 X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) patients and 15 healthy controls were included. Blood was taken before the interval intravenous immune globulin (Ig) infusions, or between subcutaneous administrations. The blood was collected using Tempus tubes and processed for microarray analysis.