The Expression of IL-6, TNF-α, and MCP-1 in Respiratory Viral Infection in Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Abstract

Viral infection is a common trigger for acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD). The aim of this study is to investigate the expression of cytokines in AECOPD. Patients with AECOPD requiring hospitalization were recruited. Meanwhile healthy volunteers of similar age that accepted routine check-ups and showed no clinical symptoms of inflammatory diseases were also recruited. Induced sputum and serum were collected. Induced sputum of participants was processed and tested for thirteen viruses and bacteria. Forty cytokines were assayed in serum using the Quantibody Human Inflammation Array 3 (Ray Biotech, Inc.). The most common virus detected in virus positive AECOPD (VP) was influenza A (16%). No virus was found in controls. Circulating levels of IL-6, TNF-α, and MCP-1 were elevated in VP and coinfection subjects (p < 0.05), while the levels of 37 other cytokines showed no difference, compared with virus negative groups and controls (p > 0.05). Additionally, VP patients were less likely to have received influenza vaccination. VP patients had a systemic inflammation response involving IL-6, TNF-α, and MCP-1 which may be due to virus-induced activation of macrophages. There are important opportunities for further investigating AECOPD mechanisms and for the development of better strategies in the management and prevention of virus-related AECOPD.

A data-driven drug repositioning framework discovered a potential therapeutic agent targeting COVID-19

“…In addition, an in vivo study in the Friend retrovirus (FV) mouse model showed that IL-6 blockage can reduce viral loads and enhance virus-specific CD8+ T-cell immunity [23]. These findings supported a hypothesis that rapid production of IL-6 might be a possible mechanism leading to the deleterious clinical manifestations in viral pathogenesis [24]. Recently published researches on the clinical characteristics of severe patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection showed that IL-6 was significantly elevated especially in those ICU patients, which caused excessive activated immune response [25,26,27,28,29].…”

Effects of 1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 on the Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in Rats Exposed to Air Pollutant Particles Less than 2.5 Micrometers in Diameter (PM2.5)

“…Intratracheal injection of endotoxin, inhalation of tobacco smog combined with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injection, single tobacco smog instillation or LPS injection are typical procedures to produce a COPD model, which is physiologically similar to human COPD [ 13 ]. LPS could trigger tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-8, and IL-10 expression [ 10 , 14 ]. In this study, COPD was successfully produced by intratracheal injection of endotoxin in combination with smoke exposure in rats.…”

Circulating miR-146a/b correlates with inflammatory cytokines in COPD and could predict the risk of acute exacerbation COPD

“…[ 11 ] T cells and T-helper-17 cells demonstrate strong associations with inflammatory cascade in COPD, [ 12 , 13 ] in which inflammatory cytokines are crucial in the early stage, such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and interleukin-8 (IL-8), after the release of which the inflammatory cells are concentrated in the site of inflammation to mediate the immune responses. [ 14 , 15 ] Therefore, our study aimed to investigate the predicting value of miR-146a/b for acute exacerbation chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) and stable COPD, and to explore their associations with inflammatory cytokines.…”