The correlations between Th1 and Th2 cytokines in human alveolar echinococcosis

Xiao Ma,Jia Liu,Wen Lei,Yufang Liu,Yongshun Wang,Jianye Zhou,Jingxiao Zhang,Qing Zhang,Kemei Shi,Na Liu,Peizhen Zhan,Junying Ma,Xuefei Zhang,Wei Wang,Cunzhe Zhao,Peiyun Liu,Huixia Cai,Haining Fan,Xiongying Zhang

doi:10.1186/s12879-020-05135-y

Abstract

BackgroundAlveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis larval tapeworm infections in humans that severely impairs the health of affected patients in the northern hemisphere.MethodsThe expression levels of 20 cytokines associated with AE infection were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the correlations between these cytokines were analysed in the R programming language.ResultsSerum cytokine levels differed among individuals in both the AE patient and healthy control groups. The results of the correlations among the cytokines showed obvious differences between the two groups. In the AE patients group, Th1 and Th2 cytokines formed a more complicated network than that in the healthy control group.ConclusionsThe altered correlations between Th1 and Th2 cytokines may be closely associated with AE infection, which may provide a new explanation for the essential differences between AE patients and healthy individuals.

Highlights

Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis larval tapeworm infections in humans that severely impairs the health of affected patients in the northern hemisphere
Cytokine analysis The expression levels of 20 cytokines were compared between the AE patient group and the healthy control group, while the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) results showed that cytokine expression levels differed among individuals in both the AE patient and healthy control groups
We summarized the related literature about cytokines associated with human AE, and the results showed that the kinds of ‘different cytokines’ were not always consistent (Table 3), indicating that it is seemingly difficult to discover biomarkers for human AE at the cytokine expression level due to the complex factors in AE affecting the process

Summary

Introduction

Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis larval tapeworm infections in humans that severely impairs the health of affected patients in the northern hemisphere. Results: Serum cytokine levels differed among individuals in both the AE patient and healthy control groups. Conclusions: The altered correlations between Th1 and Th2 cytokines may be closely associated with AE infection, which may provide a new explanation for the essential differences between AE patients and healthy individuals. Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a severe parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis larval tapeworm infection in humans that is fatal if left untreated [1, 2]. Immunotherapy has been used to complement anti-infective drug approaches, and this approach was suggested to be highly effective in treating echinococcosis; there is no accepted immunotherapy

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Discussion

Conclusion