Defect in cellular immunity (cd4, il2)‎ in persistent pulmonary tuberculosis

Abstract EN

The objective of this study was to know the consequence of some immunological factors such asCD4 cells counts, and serum IL-2 level in persistent pulmonary tuberculosis.

This study was carried out on 200 subjects from Egypt and Yemen.

These subjects were divided into two main groups ; patients group which further subdivided into three subgroups, and control group that represented the healthy individuals.

Blood samples were collected from all subjects and tested for CD4 counting and IL-2 level.

To enumerate CD4 cells, blood lymphocytes were incubated with monoclonal antibodies to count CD4 epitope (anti-CD4), then the processing of CD4 T-cells counts was performed using immunofluorescence technique.

Cytokine enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) was used to determine IL-2 level.

The findings of this study revealed that patients group (tuberculosis and other pulmonary diseases) had the low CD4 count comparing with healthy controls, this decrease in count was statistically significant.

In addition IL-2 level in patient group was significantly lower than that of healthy control group.

It could be concluded that, the decrease of CD4 cells counts and IL-2 level among persistent tuberculosis patients in comparing with healthy individuals, and newly healed tuberculosis patients might be attributed to the defect in the cellular immunity and indicated that, there is a correlation between persistent of TB infection and depressed cellular immunity in our study.