Th17/Treg imbalance in patients with liver cystic echinococcosis

Abstract

Summary Echinococcosis is a chronic parasitic infectious disease regulated by T‐cell subsets. CD4+ CD25+ FoxP3 + regulatory T (Treg) cells and Th17 cells have been described as two distinct subsets and have the opposite effect on inflammation. Th17/Treg balance controls inflammation and may play an important role in the pathogenesis of immune evasion. To assess whether this balance was broken, we detected Th17/Treg functions in different levels including cell frequencies, related cytokines secretion and key transcription factors in patients with cystic echincoccosis and healthy controls. The results demonstrated that patients with cystic echinococcosis revealed significant increase in peripheral Treg number, related cytokines (IL‐10 and TGF‐β1) and transcription factor (Foxp3) levels and moderate decrease in Th17 number, related cytokines (IL‐17 and IL‐23) and transcription factor (RORγt) levels as compared with controls. Results indicated that Th17/Treg functional imbalance exists in patients with chronic cystic echinococcosis, suggesting a potential role for Th17/Treg imbalance in the pathogenesis of immune evasion in echinococcosis.

Echinococcosis

“…Moreover, PSC present Fc-binding activity (Baz et al 1998) and express immune regulatory antigen B and EgTeg (Ortona et al 2005;Sanchez et al 1991;Monteiro et al 2010). Recently, T-regulatory and myeloid-derived suppressor cells have been found to be systemically expanded in mice with E. granulosus infection and in CE patients (Pan et al 2013;Tuxun et al 2012). Taken together, these results support the presence of an immunomodulatory environment downregulating both Th1 and Th2 responses and favoring parasite survival.…”

Th9/IL-9 Profile in Human Echinococcosis: Their Involvement in Immune Response during Infection byEchinococcus granulosus

“…It has been reported that several Th subsets, such as Th1/Th2 cells [5–7] and Th17/Treg cells [19], are involved in the regulating the immune response of Echinococcosis. Th1 and Th2 cells mainly exert their biological effects through secreting the cytokines of IFN- γ and IL-4.…”

“…Our previous study found that the levels of peripheral Th17 cells and IL-17 were slightly lower in the CE patients than in health control, suggesting there was imbalance between Th17 cells and Treg cells in CE patients [19]. Therefore, the purposes of this study are as follows: (i) to explore the change of Th9 cells in the CE patients before and after treatments; (ii) to study the characteristics of the changes of Th9-related cytokines and transcription factors; (iii) to study the correlations between Th9 and Th1, Th2, Treg, and Th17 cells in CE patients.…”

Cystic echinococcosis in South Africa: The worst yet to come?

“…Afflicted patients exhibit higher levels of regulatory T-cells, IL-10 and TGF-␤ in vivo (Chandrasekhar and Parija, 2009;Tuxun et al, 2012). It was also shown that antigen B of Echinococcus granulosus impairs maturation of dendritic cells leading to impaired responses to inflammatory stimuli and induces a Th2-dominated immune response (Rigano et al, 1995).…”