Article Details
LYMPHOPROLIFERATIVE AND CYTOKINE RESPONSE OF PERIPHERAL BLOOD MONONUCLEAR CELLS FROM HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS INDUCED BY DIFFERENT ANTIGENS OF MYCOBACTERIUM LEPRAE | Original Article
ABSTRACT:
In two different poles of leprosy different types of immune responses develop. At the tuberculoid poledelayed type of cell mediated immune response whereas at the lepromatous pole a humoral immune response develop. Present study was designed to investigate T cell proliferation and Th1/Th2 response of seven different antigens of M. leprae in healthy subjects whose immune response is not modulated like leprosy patients. We tested the effect of seven M.leprae antigens: WCL, MLSA, MLCWA, MLMA, Man-LAM, PGL-1 & 35kDa antigen of the M. leprae on the proliferation and cytokine secretion profile of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy individuals by lymphocytes transformation test and ELISA respectively. All the seven antigens induced Lymphoproliferation but the lymohoproliferation induced by Man-LAM, PGL-1 and 35kDa antigen was very low. All the antigens tested induced the production of IFN-γ but not IL-4 by PBMCs after stimulation. Except MLSA all the antigens induced the production of IL-10 after stimulation. Among the seven different antigens of M. leprae, MLCWA was found as very potent antigen as it induced high lymohoproliferation, high IFN-γ response and low IL-4 response by PBMCs after stimulation and Man-LAM induced very low lymohoproliferation, low IFN-γ response and high IL-4 and IL-10 response. Our study demonstrates that WCL, MLSA, MLCWA and MLMA antigens are strong inducer whereas Man-LAM, PGL-1 and 35kDa antigen are very weak inducers of Th1 type of immune response.