Correlation between serum levels of sTim-3, Galectin-9 and inflammatory factors IFN-γ, IL-4 in patients with brucellosis / 中华地方病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the correlation between serum soluble T cell immunoglobulin-mucin molecule-3 (sTim-3), galactose lectin-9 (Galectin-9) and inflammatory factors interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-4 (IL-4) in patients with brucellosis.Methods:Ninety patients with brucellosis admitted to Yantai Yeda Hospital from January 2016 to December 2018 were selected as the observation group, of whom 49 cases in acute stage and 41 cases in chronic stage. Another 50 healthy subjects who underwent health examination during the same period were selected as the control group. Five milliliter of fasting venous blood samples were collected from patients with brucellosis and healthy subjects, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect sTim-3 and Galectin-9 levels, and cytometric bead array (CBA) to detect IFN-γ and IL-4 levels; Pearson correlation test was used to correlate serum levels of sTim-3, Galectin-9, sTim-3/Galectin-9 and inflammatory factors IFN-γ, IL-4 in patients with brucellosis.Results:The levels of sTim-3 [(18.28 ± 5.38), (7.01 ± 1.97) ng/L], Galectin-9 [(2.79 ± 0.94), (1.67 ± 0.23) ng/L], sTim-3/Galectin-9 (6.55 ± 2.96, 4.20 ± 0.67), IFN-γ [(5.99 ± 1.94), (10.09 ± 2.03) ng/L], IL-4 [(7.34 ± 3.13), (3.71 ± 1.76) ng/L] were significantly different between the observation group and control group ( t = 14.271, 8.276, 5.527, 11.785, 7.556, P < 0.05). In the observation group, the levels of sTim-3 [(22.09 ± 3.13), (14.21 ± 3.42) ng/L], Galectin-9 [(2.98 ± 0.67), (2.41 ± 0.74) ng/L], sTim-3/Galectin-9 (7.41 ± 1.07, 5.90 ± 1.72), IFN-γ [(3.78 ± 1.65), (7.02 ± 1.73) ng/L], and IL-4 [(9.17 ± 2.04), (5.67 ± 1.54) ng/L] were statistically significant difference between patients with acute and chronic brucellosis ( t = 11.402, 3.833, 5.084, 9.075, 9.037, P < 0.05). Pearson correlation test showed that the levels of sTim-3, Galectin-9, and sTim-3/Galectin-9 in patients with brucellosis were negatively correlated with IFN-γ level ( r = - 0.568, - 0.531, - 0.519, P < 0.05), and positively correlated with IL-4 level ( r = 0.517, 0.524, 0.536, P < 0.05). Conclusion:The expressions of sTim-3 and Galectin-9 in serum of brucellosis patients are high, and they are significantly correlated with IFN-γ and IL-4 levels, suggesting that sTim-3 and Galectin-9 maybe related to the occurrence and development of brucellosis.