Prabha C, Supriya P, Das Sulochana D, Sukumar B, Balaji S
Department of Immunology, Tuberculosis Research Centre (ICMR), Chennai, India.
Indian J Med Res. 2008 Dec;128(6):721-7.
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Tuberculous pleuritis is used as a model to understand the protective immune response in tuberculosis. It is predominated by Th1 response at the site of infection, where a possible role for the leptin, a known enhancer of Th1 response, could be speculated. Hence, we investigated leptin levels in pleural effusions in patients with both tuberculous (TP) and non-tuberculous (NTP) pleural effusion.
Leptin and cytokine levels were assessed in serum and pleural fluid of TP and NTP patients (N = 20 each) by ELISA. Multivariate regression analysis were performed to find the possible determinants of leptin taking leptin as the dependent and body mass index (BMI), gender, source of leptin [i.e., serum or pleural fluid (PF)], age and disease status as independent variables.
PF leptin levels were significantly higher than serum leptin levels in both the groups however the PF leptin levels were significantly lower in TP subjects compared to NTP. The results showed that the leptin was found to be dependent on BMI but not on the other parameters. However, regression analysis based on the source of leptin showed males to be a better predictor of leptin. No correlation was observed between leptin and measured immune parameters.
INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION: Our findings demonstrated that the decreased leptin levels were associated with reduction in BMI but not with the disease status in tuberculous pleuritis.
结核性胸膜炎被用作了解结核病保护性免疫反应的模型。在感染部位，它以Th1反应为主，因此可以推测，已知的Th1反应增强剂瘦素可能发挥作用。因此，我们研究了结核性胸膜炎（TP）和非结核性胸膜炎（NTP）患者胸腔积液中的瘦素水平。
采用酶联免疫吸附测定法（ELISA）评估TP和NTP患者（每组N = 20）血清和胸腔积液中的瘦素和细胞因子水平。以瘦素为因变量，体重指数（BMI）、性别、瘦素来源[即血清或胸腔积液（PF）]、年龄和疾病状态为自变量，进行多因素回归分析，以找出瘦素的可能决定因素。
两组患者的胸腔积液瘦素水平均显著高于血清瘦素水平，但与NTP患者相比，TP患者的胸腔积液瘦素水平显著降低。结果表明，瘦素水平取决于BMI，而与其他参数无关。然而，基于瘦素来源的回归分析表明，男性是瘦素更好的预测指标。未观察到瘦素与检测的免疫参数之间存在相关性。
我们的研究结果表明，结核性胸膜炎患者瘦素水平降低与BMI降低有关，而与疾病状态无关。
