Exacerbated inflammatory cellular immune response characteristics of HAM/TSP is observed in a large proportion of HTLV-I asymptomatic carriers
Autor: | Edgar M. Carvalho, Walderez O. Dutra, Elza Magalhães, Aurélia F. Porto, Silvane Santos, Kenneth J. Gollob, André Muniz, Amélia Ribeiro de Jesus, Ailton Melo |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2004 |
Předmět: |
Adult
medicine.medical_treatment T-Lymphocytes CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes Asymptomatic Immunological response in HTLV-I infection lcsh:Infectious and parasitic diseases Myelopathy Interferon-gamma Immune system immune system diseases Tropical spastic paraparesis medicine Humans lcsh:RC109-216 Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 biology HTLV-I carriers business.industry Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha virus diseases Middle Aged medicine.disease biology.organism_classification HTLV-I Markers of HAM/TSP progression HTLV-I Infections Paraparesis Tropical Spastic HTLV-I Antibodies Cytokine Infectious Diseases Immunology Carrier State medicine.symptom business HAM/TSP Asymptomatic carrier CD8 Research Article |
Zdroj: | BMC Infectious Diseases BMC Infectious Diseases, Vol 4, Iss 1, p 7 (2004) |
ISSN: | 1471-2334 |
Popis: | Background A small fraction of Human T cell Leukemia Virus type-1 (HTLV-I) infected subjects develop a severe form of myelopathy. It has been established that patients with HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) show an exaggerated immune response when compared with the immunological response observed in HTLV-I asymptomatic carriers. In this study the immunological responses in HAM/TSP patients and in HTLV-I asymptomatic carriers were compared using several immunological assays to identify immunological markers associated with progression from infection to disease. Methods Immunoproliferation assays, cytokine levels of unstimulated cultures, and flow cytometry analysis were used to evaluate the studied groups. Nonparametric tests (Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed ranks) were used to compare the difference between the groups. Results Although both groups showed great variability, HAM/TSP patients had higher spontaneous lymphoproliferation as well as higher IFN-γ levels in unstimulated supernatants when compared with asymptomatic carriers. Flow cytometry studies demonstrated a high frequency of inflammatory cytokine (IFN-γ and TNF-α) producing lymphocytes in HAM/TSP as compared to the asymptomatic group. This difference was accounted for mainly by an increase in CD8 cell production of these cytokines. Moreover, the HAM/TSP patients also expressed an increased frequency of CD28-/CD8+ T cells. Since forty percent of the asymptomatic carriers had spontaneous lymphoproliferation and IFN-γ production similar to HAM/TSP patients, IFN-γ levels were measured eight months after the first evaluation in some of these patients to observe if this was a transient or a persistent situation. No significant difference was observed between the means of IFN-γ levels in the first and second evaluation. Conclusions The finding that a large proportion of HTLV-I carriers present similar immunological responses to those observed in HAM/TSP, strongly argues for further studies to evaluate these parameters as markers of HAM/TSP progression. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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