Concentrations of interleukin 6 and tumour necrosis factor in serum and stools of children with Shigella dysenteriae 1 infection.

Abstract

Serum interleukin 6 (IL-6) and tumour necrosis factor (TNF) were measured in children with dysentery during an epidemic caused by Shigella dysenteriae 1. IL-6 and TNF were also measured in fresh stool filtrates from children with acute gastroenteritis. The median serum IL-6 concentration was raised significantly in the children with complications (haemolytic uraemic syndrome, leukemoid reaction, thrombocytopenia, thrombocytosis, and severe colitis lasting more than one week) during the first week (n= 18, 9-7728 pg/ml; median 107) and in the second week (n= 13, 5-312 pg/ml; median 77), compared with convalescent sera (n=10, <3-85 pg/ml; median 39; p<002 and <0*05 respectively). The median IL-6 concentration during the first week was significantly higher in the group with complicated disease than in those with no complications (n=8, <3-37 pg/ml; median 5; p<0001). Although serum TNF concentrations were significantly raised in the complicated group during the first and second weeks of the illness and in the uncomplicated group compared with convalescence, there was no significant difference in the TNF concentrations between the complicated and uncomplicated groups. IL-6 was detectable in stool filtrates from eight of 13 children with S dysenteriae 1 infection and four of eight children with S flexneri infection. It was not detectable in Cryptosporidia, rotavirus, or adenovirus infections, those with pathogen-negative acute diarrhoea or controls. Seven of 13 children with S dysenteriae 1 and three of nine children with Sflexneri infections

Context-Dependent Activation Kinetics Elicited by Soluble versus Outer Membrane Vesicle-Associated Heat-Labile Enterotoxin

“…Using in vivo studies, Dann et al showed that IL-6 was produced in mouse intestines in response to Citrobacter rodentium and that this induction was important in preventing infectioninduced apoptosis in the colonic epithelium (6). In clinical settings, both IL-6 and TNF-␣ have been found in the stools of children who had diarrhea that was caused by another enteric pathogen, Shigella dysenteriae (8). In addition, in children with enterocolitis, serum IL-6 has been shown to be discriminative of bacterial etiology from viral etiology (51).…”

Human Monocytes KillShigella flexneribut Then Die by Apoptosis Associated with Suppression of Proinflammatory Cytokine Production

“…Cytokines such as IL-6 and TNF-␣ are important for the early innate immune response in bacterial infection (4,10), and moreover, TNF-␣ has been shown to kill S. flexneri-infected epithelial cells, suggesting that cytokine suppression might be important for early bacterial survival within epithelial cells (21). However, it is clear that high local intestinal levels of proinflammatory cytokines, including TNF-␣, are present during established shigellosis (34,35,40). Perhaps a block in proinflammatory cytokine production at an early critical point in the disease process facilitates bacterial survival and proliferation, which then subsequently provokes the disordered inflammatory response that is characteristic of shigellosis.…”

Proinflammatory fecal mRNA and childhood bacterial enteric infections

“…The mRNAs correspond to a panel of pro-inflammatory host proteins (IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, calprotectin and osteoprotegerin (OPG)), which are found in excess in the stool in infectious or inflammatory diarrhea by EIA, or have been found to be associated with the intestinal immune response to infection. [6][7][8][9][10][11] We also compared the resulting transcript ratios to protein concentrations as determined by EIAs for IL-8, calprotectin and OPG. …”