Detection of Cytokines and Collectins in Bronchoalveolar Fluid Samples of Patients Infected with and .

Histoplasmosis and pneumocystosis co-infections have been reported mainly in immunocompromised humans and in wild animals. The immunological response to each fungal infection has been described primarily using animal models; however, the host response to concomitant infection is unknown. The present work aimed to evaluate the pulmonary immunological response of patients with pneumonia caused either by , , or their co-infection. We analyzed the pulmonary collectin and cytokine patterns of 131 bronchoalveolar lavage samples, which included HIV and non-HIV patients infected with , , or both fungi, as well as healthy volunteers and HIV patients without the studied fungal infections. Our results showed an increased production of the surfactant protein-A (SP-A) in non-HIV patients with infection, contrasting with HIV patients ( < 0.05). Significant differences in median values of SP-A, IL-1β, TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-18, IL-17A, IL-33, IL-13, and CXCL8 were found among all the groups studied, suggesting that these cytokines play a role in the local inflammatory processes of histoplasmosis and pneumocystosis. Interestingly, non-HIV patients with co-infection and pneumocystosis alone showed lower levels of SP-A, IL-1β, TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-18, IL-17A, and IL-23 than histoplasmosis patients, suggesting an immunomodulatory ability of over response.