Evaluation of cytokines in alcoholic patients Strongyloides stercoralis infected
Strongyloides stercoralis. Alcoholics. Cytokines.
Strongyloides stercoralis infection prevalence is high in alcoholic patients. Excessive alcohol consumption increases the levels of endogenous corticosteroids, which mimic the effect of the ecdysone, a parasitic hormone which stimulates the differentiation of rabditoid into infectious filarioid larvae. The immune response to strongyloidiasis in immunocompromised patients is usually associated with a Th2 cellular response profile. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum levels of cytokines (INF-γ, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-15, IL-17) in alcoholic patients infected with S. stercoralis and to correlate its levels with the parasite load. S. stercoralis frequency was evaluated in 336 alcoholic patients attended at the Centro de Acolhimento e Tratamento de Alcoolistas (CATA), Obras Sociais Irmã Dulce, Salvador, BA, from April 2017 to August 2018. The parasitological diagnosis was performed by three methods: agar plate culture, Baermann-Moraes and spontaneous sedimentation in, at least, two fecal samples from each patient on alternate days. Serum cytokines levels were determined in 88 sera from S. stercoralis infected (n = 24) and non-infected (n = 24) alcoholic patients and S. stercoralis infected (n = 20) and non-infected (n = 20) non-alcoholic individuals (n = 20). S. stercoralis infection frequency in alcoholic patients was 16.1% (54/336). Among the evaluated cytokines, a statistically significant elevation in IL-10 and IL-15 levels was observed in patients compared to S. stercoralis infected non-alcoholics individuals (p <0.05). A negative correlation was demonstrated between the concentration of INF-γ and IL-17 with the parasite load of alcoholic patients. Thus, it is probably that alcohol is inducing the simultaneous elevation of both pro-inflammatory and regulatory cytokines, IL-15 and IL-10, respectively. The negative correlation of INF-γ and IL-17 concentrations with the parasite load probably reflects on the modulation of the T reg cells in the control of the strongyloidiasis.