IL-10 in HIV infection: increasing serum IL-10 levels with disease progression—down-regulatory effect of potent anti-retroviral therapy

Abstract

To examine the potential pathogenic role of IL-10 in HIV infection, we measured serum IL-10 levels in 51 HIV-infected patients and 23 healthy controls both on cross-sectional and longitudinal testing. All clinical groups (Centers for Disease Control (CDC) categories) of HIV-infected patients had significantly higher circulating IL-10 levels than controls, with the highest levels among the AIDS patients, particularly in patients with ongoing Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection. Among 32 HIV-infected patients followed with longitudinal testing (median observation time 39 months), patients with disease progression had increasing IL-10 levels in serum, in contrast to non-progressing patients where levels were stable. While both IL-10 and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) increased in patients with disease progression, the IL-10/TNF-alpha ratio decreased in these patients, suggesting imbalance between these two cytokines. Finally, we found that highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) induced a significant, gradual decrease in IL-10 levels but without normalization. These findings suggest a pathogenic role for IL-10 in HIV infection, and may suggest a possible role for immunomodulating therapy which down-regulates IL-10 activity in addition to concomitant potent anti-retroviral therapy in HIV-infected patients.

The comparison of Th1, Th2, Th9, Th17 and Th22 cytokine profiles in acute and chronic HIV-1 infection

“…However, it should be noted that a direct comparison between these results is not possible due to the differences in the sampling period in the two studies (eclipse phase vs. acute/recent stage of infection). Stylianou et al showed increasing levels of IL-10 and TNF-α level in HIV-infected patients, regardless of the stage of infection but with highest concentrations in patients with the most advanced disease [27]. Our study also demonstrated increased concentrations of IL-10 and TNF-α in HIV-infected patients in both acute and chronic stage of infection compared to controls.…”

Dengue Infection in a Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 Positive Patient Chronically Infected with Hepatitis B Virus in Western Mexico

“…19 Even though the effect of HAART treatment during dengue infection remains unknown, the attenuation of certain cytokines in HIV-1-infected patients treated with HAART, such as IL-10 and TNF-α, could play an important role in decreasing dengue disease progression in HIV-1-positive patients. 20,21 Both IL-10 and TNF-α are strongly associated with severe dengue infection. 22 The HIV-1 viral loads in our patient remained at normal levels (< 40 HIV-1 RNA copies/mL) during DENV-1 infection and 6 months later.…”

Characterization of CD56–/CD16+natural killer (NK) cells: A highly dysfunctional NK subset expanded in HIV-infected viremic individuals

“…Several cytokines have been shown to modulate the expression of NK receptors and some, such as TGF-␤, which down-regulates the levels of NKp30 (32), and IL-10, which increases the expression of several iNKRs (33), have been found to be present at elevated levels in the serum of AIDS patients (34)(35)(36). We did not find significant differences in the levels of TGF-␤ (13) or IL-10 (data not shown) secreted by NK cells from viremic individuals compared with those of healthy donors, suggesting that at least an autocrine mechanism of receptor modulation among NK cells is not likely.…”