Studies on Th2 Type Cytokines in Patients with Neurocysticercosis / 中国寄生虫学与寄生虫病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the level of Th2 type cytokines including IL-4, IL-10 and IL-13, and the immunoreg-ulation of cytokines in patients with neurocysticercosis. Methods Lymphocytes in patients with neurocysticercosis were separated from the blood sample with density gradient centrifugation and the total RNA was extracted by guanidine isothiocynate method. cDNA was synthesized by reversed transcription reaction. The target gene was then amplified by PCR. The PCR products were analyzed by electrophoresis. Results Results of RT-PCR showed that cytokines mRNA in lymphocytes of peripheral blcod were detected in 27 patients with neurocysticercosis but not in the other 3 cases. Among the positive cases, mRNA of IL-4, IL-10 and IL-13 was detected in 16, 17 and 14 cases respectively and mRNA of IL-4, IL-10 and/or IL-13 was detected in all the 27 cases. In the detection of lymphocytes in peripheral blcod of 10 healthy subjects, expression of IL-4 and IL-10 was found in only one case at low level. Conclusion The study revealed that Th2 associated cytokines were expressed at high level and the humoral immunocompetence was relatively strong in patients with neurocysticercosis.