Reduced IL-2 But Elevated IL-4, IL-6, and IgE Serum Levels in Patients with Cerebral Infarction During the Acute Stage

Abstract

Cytokines in the central nervous system (CNS) may play an important role in functioning as intercellular signals that orchestrate the response to injury. Whether this is a cause or result of the brain disease process is uncertain. We investigated IFN-gamma, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, and IgE in the sera of 38 patients with cerebral infarction during the acute stage and 10 normal controls using an originally devised sensitive sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We found that serum levels of IL-2 derived from T helper 1 (Th1) cells were slightly reduced in patients with cerebral infarction, whereas serum levels of IL-4 and IL-6 derived from Th2 cells were elevated significantly. IL-4 induces synthesis of IgE in human B cells. Endogenous IL-6 plays an obligatory role in IL-4-dependent human IgE synthesis. We observed that serum IgE levels were elevated significantly in patients with cerebral infarction. However, serum IFN-gamma levels were not elevated significantly in cerebral infarction patients. These findings suggest that elevated IL-4, IL-6, and IgE levels in the human serum may be an important factor in cerebral infarction during the acute stage. Decrease of IL-2 levels in the serum of patients with cerebral infarction may be a regulatory mechanism.

Temporal Profile of Cerebrospinal Fluid, Plasma, and Brain Interleukin-6 After Normothermic Fluid-Percussion Brain Injury: Effect of Secondary Hypoxia

“…For example, in a recent study where animals were subjected to closed head injury, femoral fracture, and hemorrhagic shock, an increased inflammation, including elevated blood levels of IL-6 were reported compared to animals undergoing TBI alone (Probst et al, 2012). In clinical studies where secondary insults may be common, IL-6 has been reported to be an effective biomarker for brain injury severity and may be predictive for a delayed increase in intracranial pressure (Kim et al, 2000;Woiciechowsky et al, 2002;Hergenroeder et al, 2010).…”

Intravenously Delivered Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cells Bidirectionally Regulate Inflammation and Induce Neurotrophic Effects in Distal Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion Rats Within the First 7 Days After Stroke

“…There is evidence that IL-6, which is released by many hematogenous cells in response to injury and infection, plays a role in promoting T cell and B cell growth and is a predictive marker of stroke outcome [36]. Elevated levels of circulating IL-6 are found after stroke [37] and are correlated with infarct size [38] and poor outcome [39]. …”

Association of variable number of tandem repeat polymorphism in the IL-4 gene with ischemic stroke in the Chinese Uyghur population

“…In particular, there is little questions that the elevated production of IL-4 serves as an excellent marker of IS in vitro (Kim et al, 2000). However, the role of the IL-4 VNTR polymorphism in the risk for IS remains unclear.…”

“…It was proposed that an increased responsiveness of the 2R allele to transcriptional activation might lead to the overexpression of IL-4 (Vandenbroeck et al, 1997). Furthermore, patients presented elevated IL-4 levels during the acute stage of cerebral infarction (Kim et al, 2000). The VNTR polymorphism of the IL-4 gene has been widely shown to be associated with a number of inflammatory diseases, including multiple sclerosis and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura as well as cerebrovascular disease (Vandenbroeck et al, 1997;Chen et al, 2007;Um and Kim, 2009).…”