HOME JOURNALS CONTACT

Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences

Year: 2009 | Volume: 12 | Issue: 20 | Page No.: 1376-1380
DOI: 10.3923/pjbs.2009.1376.1380
Th-1/Th-2 Cytokine Pattern in Human Amoebic Colitis
A. Rafiei, A. Ajami, M. Hajilooi and A. Etemadi

Abstract: Amoebiasis, caused by Entamoeba histolytica, is still considered a major health problem in developing countries. Since the immune response during human amoebiasis has not been clearly defined, we chose to evaluate cytokine production in patients suffering from amoebic colitis. A case-control association study was carried out on 62 subjects, including 31 patients with amoebic colitis and 31 healthy controls (age, sex and geographic region-matched). Serum levels of IL-12, IFN-γ, IL-13 and IL-5 were measured by solid-phase sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbant assay. Serum levels of IFN-γ, IL-12, IL-13 and IL-5 were higher in the patients with amoebic colitis than in healthy controls, but were only statistically increased for IL-5 (p = 0.04) and IL-13 (p = 0.014). Stratification of patients according to gender revealed that IL-13 was significantly elevated in men as compared to levels measured in women (p = 0.04). These findings suggest that E. histolytica induce a mixed Th-1/Th-2 response with a polarization toward Th-2 during the early stage of amoebiasis, which may aide in developing a clinical illness.

Fulltext PDF Fulltext HTML

How to cite this article
A. Rafiei, A. Ajami, M. Hajilooi and A. Etemadi, 2009. Th-1/Th-2 Cytokine Pattern in Human Amoebic Colitis. Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences, 12: 1376-1380.

Related Articles:
© Science Alert. All Rights Reserved